When I was a little kid, my dad introduced me to SOS, which he swore was a Navy-oriented dish of creamed chipped beef on toast. Later on in life, I found out that some folks called SOS a dish of creamed ground beef, or, what my family always called "hamburger gravy." Either/eyether, right? Whatever you choose to call any of it, it involves some type of chopped up meat and a cream sauce, which is served over whatever you want to serve it over: I prefer mashed potatoes, you might like toast, noodles, or rice. Anyway...and btw, I'm not going to tell you exactly what SOS means here, because the last time I said it on a public board, I was soundly trounced for using a "bad" word, lol. SOS is "$&!! on a Shingle," ok? So I've always loved gravies, and last week started craving the SOS type meal, and figured that probably TVP would do the trick. And, much to my delight, yes, it did. There's not a real recipe here, because it's pretty much an "as-you-like-it" type dish, but I'll give you the general idea, and you can run with it, ok?
"SOS" using TVP...vegan
One cup TVP granules
Enough oil/margarine to coat the bottom of a medium skillet
One onion, diced
1/2 tsp. ground sage
One tsp. minced garlic...I use the kind in the jar
One tsp. liquid smoke
About 3C water
About 1 Tbs. cornstarch
Half of a 10-oz. bag of frozen peas and carrots
Salt and black pepper to taste...I like a lot of pepper and not much salt
Cook the diced onion in the oil in the skillet over medium heat until it's transparent and starting to soften. Add the dry TVP granules, sage, and minced garlic, and, stirring, cook for about five minutes, until everything is coated with the oil, the garlic is just starting to brown a little, and everything smells good.
Mix the liquid smoke with the two cups of water, and add to the skillet, add the frozen peas and carrots, and bring it all to the boil, and let it simmer about 15 minutes, to make sure the granules soften nicely. Mix the cornstarch with the last cup of water, and after the granules have simmered the 15 minutes, add the water/cornstarch mixture. Allow this to come to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for a few more minutes, to allow the mixture to thicken up somewhat.
If you want to, while the onion is cooking, you can also add bell peppers, celery, mushrooms, anything you can think of that you think would be good. The more veggies you can put in, the better it's going to be, both in taste and nutrition. I also think that if there's any leftovers, you can, if you want, add some kernel corn, and make a shepherd's pie from this, altho I didn't. I just kept reheating it as gravy, and pouring it over stuff, lol...mashed potatoes, plain bread, biscuits, you get the idea, right? I really liked it, and will make it again, I have no doubt, as it's really easy and doesn't take too awfully long.
Well, I thought I was going to whine, and well, yeah, I guess I will. Nah, not too much after all: I'm just in one of my funks, don't like it, don't know what to do about it, don't feel really well physically and don't know what to do about it. So, waaaaaa, waaaaaaa, waaaaaaa. This, too, shall pass.
Until next time, Happy Eating.
Showing posts with label gravy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gravy. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Seitan "Pork Cutlets;"...vegan. Spaghetti Sauce w/Seitan
Another rainy day, about the third in a row for GA, I think, altho mostly it's been an off and on sort of rain. This morning, tho, it's been coming down very nicely for about four or five hours now, and I'm delighted, of course. I absolutely LOVE rainy days, especially on my days off(perfect day for making soup!), and we still need the rain, as we're still in a drought situation.
Got a few things to mention before I get to the recipes this week. First and most importantly, I'm very proud to announce that as of Wednesday, 3/25/09, 5:15PM, I became a great-grandmother!! And I'm ONLY 61, which I think is fairly young to be a great. The baby was 6lbs., 6oz., and 19inches long. His name is Rayden Elijah Lee, and those are his first names. I won't mention his last name here. The Rayden caught me totally by surprise, as my dgd hadn't mentioned that name to me, just the Elijah Lee. Her custodial grandfather came by yesterday evening to tell me...if I'd been offline Wednesday, I'd have known as soon as the baby was born, lol...and showed my Rayden's picture. He's actually pretty good-looking, for a newborn!!! I'm looking forward to seeing and holding him.
Secondly, as of Thursday, 3/26/09, 9:30PM, I have been a non-smoker for one whole week, which means, according to www.quitnet.com, that I have made it thru "Hell Week." According to their calculator on the site, I've saved a little over $49, added 1 day and 17 hours to my life, and not smoked over 900 cigarettes...I can't remember the exact number. I'm impressed, lol.
So, this week's recipe is another seitan recipe, Seitan "Pork Cutlets," but I didn't taste any pork flavor in them at all. I also didn't like this seitan recipe as well as I ended up liking the one for the vegetarian lunchmeat seitan, but I'm still going to post it, as it gives you another option for making seitan. And, like the first one, itmakes a whole heckuva lot, so be prepared to freeze some for a later use. The recipe is from httoL..www.vegan-food.net/recipe/225/Seitan-Pork-Cutlets/
...............................SEITAN "PORK CUTLETS".................................
2C vital wheat gluten
2Tbs. nutritional yeast flakes
1tsp. onion powder, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1C cold water, 1/2C hot water mixed w/2tsp. vegemite or other yeast extract
2Tbs. EACH ketchup and soy sauce
2tsp. Kitchen Bouquet or other gravy browner, optional
COOKING BROTH:
4 1/2C water and 2-4 vegetable stock cubes
1C chopped onions
1/4????ground dried Chinese mushrooms[I'm guessing 1/4 cup]
2Tbs. ketchup, 2 bay leaves, 1/2 tsp. EACH white pepper and paprika, 1 tsp. dried sage.
METHOD:
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk liquid ingredients together. Pour liquid into dry ingredients and mix will, until it forms a ball.
To make cutlets, divide the uncooked gluten into 12 pieces and flatten them with your hands and/or a rolling pin as thinly as you can(they will expand). For stew chunks, cut into small pieces.
Place in a casserole dish and cover with the cooking broth. Cover and bake at 350ºF for 30 minutes, then at 300ºF for another 30 minutes[SEE NOTE*]. Cool and store in cooking broth. You can also just simmer(do not boil, as this makes it spongy)on top of stove for an hour.
*NOTE: Comment from a reader who is a professional seitan maker: "It takes AT LEAST 2 hours to bake it. If it is too soft, it doesn't have enough water...just add and add and add and after the time has elapsed you will see the toughness emerge. Baked seitan gets SOFTER before it gets harder. Keep baking, keep adding water...add seasoned water, heavily salted water will help prevent too much diffusion of your flavors out into the cooking broth...be sure there is some OIL in the water, too! Like 1/2C for a large pan...."
First of all, when I added the water to my dry ingredients, somehow I added two cups of the cold water, instead of just one, as called for. So, then I had to dump in more vital gluten, and add more spices, and hope for the best. Considering my screw-up, I guess the seitan wasn't as bad as it could be, but it sure could've been better, I think. I baked half of it and simmered half of it on the stove, and both methods made the seitan very WET, so I'm guessing I did something else wrong, but don't know what it is.
I also need to tell you that I have no clue as to what vegemite is, so didn't use that or any other yeast extract, and don't know if it made much of a difference or not. Instead of the nutritional yeast flakes, I used 2Tbs. of vegetarian Parmesan cheese, and since "nooch" is used in place of cheeses, don't believe the Parmesan made too much difference.
What I did with the baked portion was to put it back into the oven, no more broth, and left it there for about another hour, at 300ºF, which dried it out considerably. The batch that was simmered is still in the fridge, still wet, and hopefully it hasn't gone bad yet, and I can salvage it, too.
With the baked and then re-baked portion, I did two things: I made a pan-fried seitan with gravy which was pretty darned good, and then I made a spaghetti sauce with chunks of fried seitan, which was excellent.
To make the gravy, I chunked up as much seitan as I thought I'd eat, and then tossed it into a hot skillet with olive oil and butter, and let it get nice and brown and crispy. Then I used the broth from the baking, about two cups I think, to make the gravy: poured it over the seitan in the frying pan and let it come to a simmer. When it was hot, I ladled out about 1/2 cup into a bowl, and put about 2Tbs. cornstarch into the hot liquid, and whisked it smooth with a fork. Then poured it back into the frying pan, and let it come to a boil and get to the thickness I wanted. It was very, very good, and I have the leftovers in the freezer.
The spaghetti sauce was easy, too. One 15oz. can each diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, onions, bay leaf, garlic, and Italian seasoning, and then the seitan chunks, let it all simmer for about 15 minutes or so. The first time, I put it over tri-coloured rotini. With the leftovers, I buttered and grilled one side each of two slices of sourdough bread, laying slices of vegetarian Smoked Provolone "cheese" on the unbuttered side. When the bread had browned and the "cheese" started melting, I transferred them to a plate and poured the heated sauce and seitan over it. Wow! It was wonderful, it truly was! I will definitely do it again some day.
That's all I have for this week, so, until next time, Happy Eating!!
Got a few things to mention before I get to the recipes this week. First and most importantly, I'm very proud to announce that as of Wednesday, 3/25/09, 5:15PM, I became a great-grandmother!! And I'm ONLY 61, which I think is fairly young to be a great. The baby was 6lbs., 6oz., and 19inches long. His name is Rayden Elijah Lee, and those are his first names. I won't mention his last name here. The Rayden caught me totally by surprise, as my dgd hadn't mentioned that name to me, just the Elijah Lee. Her custodial grandfather came by yesterday evening to tell me...if I'd been offline Wednesday, I'd have known as soon as the baby was born, lol...and showed my Rayden's picture. He's actually pretty good-looking, for a newborn!!! I'm looking forward to seeing and holding him.
Secondly, as of Thursday, 3/26/09, 9:30PM, I have been a non-smoker for one whole week, which means, according to www.quitnet.com, that I have made it thru "Hell Week." According to their calculator on the site, I've saved a little over $49, added 1 day and 17 hours to my life, and not smoked over 900 cigarettes...I can't remember the exact number. I'm impressed, lol.
So, this week's recipe is another seitan recipe, Seitan "Pork Cutlets," but I didn't taste any pork flavor in them at all. I also didn't like this seitan recipe as well as I ended up liking the one for the vegetarian lunchmeat seitan, but I'm still going to post it, as it gives you another option for making seitan. And, like the first one, itmakes a whole heckuva lot, so be prepared to freeze some for a later use. The recipe is from httoL..www.vegan-food.net/recipe/225/Seitan-Pork-Cutlets/
...............................SEITAN "PORK CUTLETS".................................
2C vital wheat gluten
2Tbs. nutritional yeast flakes
1tsp. onion powder, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1C cold water, 1/2C hot water mixed w/2tsp. vegemite or other yeast extract
2Tbs. EACH ketchup and soy sauce
2tsp. Kitchen Bouquet or other gravy browner, optional
COOKING BROTH:
4 1/2C water and 2-4 vegetable stock cubes
1C chopped onions
1/4????ground dried Chinese mushrooms[I'm guessing 1/4 cup]
2Tbs. ketchup, 2 bay leaves, 1/2 tsp. EACH white pepper and paprika, 1 tsp. dried sage.
METHOD:
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk liquid ingredients together. Pour liquid into dry ingredients and mix will, until it forms a ball.
To make cutlets, divide the uncooked gluten into 12 pieces and flatten them with your hands and/or a rolling pin as thinly as you can(they will expand). For stew chunks, cut into small pieces.
Place in a casserole dish and cover with the cooking broth. Cover and bake at 350ºF for 30 minutes, then at 300ºF for another 30 minutes[SEE NOTE*]. Cool and store in cooking broth. You can also just simmer(do not boil, as this makes it spongy)on top of stove for an hour.
*NOTE: Comment from a reader who is a professional seitan maker: "It takes AT LEAST 2 hours to bake it. If it is too soft, it doesn't have enough water...just add and add and add and after the time has elapsed you will see the toughness emerge. Baked seitan gets SOFTER before it gets harder. Keep baking, keep adding water...add seasoned water, heavily salted water will help prevent too much diffusion of your flavors out into the cooking broth...be sure there is some OIL in the water, too! Like 1/2C for a large pan...."
First of all, when I added the water to my dry ingredients, somehow I added two cups of the cold water, instead of just one, as called for. So, then I had to dump in more vital gluten, and add more spices, and hope for the best. Considering my screw-up, I guess the seitan wasn't as bad as it could be, but it sure could've been better, I think. I baked half of it and simmered half of it on the stove, and both methods made the seitan very WET, so I'm guessing I did something else wrong, but don't know what it is.
I also need to tell you that I have no clue as to what vegemite is, so didn't use that or any other yeast extract, and don't know if it made much of a difference or not. Instead of the nutritional yeast flakes, I used 2Tbs. of vegetarian Parmesan cheese, and since "nooch" is used in place of cheeses, don't believe the Parmesan made too much difference.
What I did with the baked portion was to put it back into the oven, no more broth, and left it there for about another hour, at 300ºF, which dried it out considerably. The batch that was simmered is still in the fridge, still wet, and hopefully it hasn't gone bad yet, and I can salvage it, too.
With the baked and then re-baked portion, I did two things: I made a pan-fried seitan with gravy which was pretty darned good, and then I made a spaghetti sauce with chunks of fried seitan, which was excellent.
To make the gravy, I chunked up as much seitan as I thought I'd eat, and then tossed it into a hot skillet with olive oil and butter, and let it get nice and brown and crispy. Then I used the broth from the baking, about two cups I think, to make the gravy: poured it over the seitan in the frying pan and let it come to a simmer. When it was hot, I ladled out about 1/2 cup into a bowl, and put about 2Tbs. cornstarch into the hot liquid, and whisked it smooth with a fork. Then poured it back into the frying pan, and let it come to a boil and get to the thickness I wanted. It was very, very good, and I have the leftovers in the freezer.
The spaghetti sauce was easy, too. One 15oz. can each diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, onions, bay leaf, garlic, and Italian seasoning, and then the seitan chunks, let it all simmer for about 15 minutes or so. The first time, I put it over tri-coloured rotini. With the leftovers, I buttered and grilled one side each of two slices of sourdough bread, laying slices of vegetarian Smoked Provolone "cheese" on the unbuttered side. When the bread had browned and the "cheese" started melting, I transferred them to a plate and poured the heated sauce and seitan over it. Wow! It was wonderful, it truly was! I will definitely do it again some day.
That's all I have for this week, so, until next time, Happy Eating!!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
JB's PDG Tempeh Gravy
I made the tempeh gravy Tuesday evening, and was very pleased with the results. And, as always, learned something. What I learned about the tempeh was that when I'm trying to brown it, do it by itself, don't do it with the onions in the pan with it. It's too easy to end up with burnt onions, but not nice and crispy tempeh crumbles. Having said that, I'll explain how I made this gravy...and without any recipe, btw.
First I put about a tablespoonful of evoo and one of margarine in a big skillet...the one I have is non-stick, but if you don't have one, well, don't sweat it. I diced up half a medium onion, and an 8-oz. package of tempeh, and when the oil and margarine were good and hot, put the onion and tempeh in the skillet, and just let them brown, stirring fairly often, probably for about ten minutes or so. During the last few minutes, I added a good teaspoonful of minced garlic, and some salt and pepper. The tempeh seemed to have sucked up all the grease, so I added about another tablespoonful of oil, this time using safflower oil, as I didn't really want the evoo taste in the gravy. Then I put about an 1/8C of all-purpose flour over the mixture, stirred it in well, and let it cook for a couple minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste. Then I added about a cup or so of soymilk...really don't know quite how much, just until I thought it was a little too thin, because as it cooks, it's going to thicken up. Brought the whole shebang to a gentle simmer, let it simmer for just a few minutes, and there it was: tempeh gravy!
Did I like it? Well, it was ok, and I'll probably make it again sometime, but believe it or not, the next time I do, I'm going to add a few squirts of honey to it. There was a slightly bitter taste in it, and I think a little honey would be just the thing to get rid of it.
Yesterday at Kroger, I bought another package of tempeh, and I also bought a honey-based bbq sauce to try, so one of these days I'm going to try bbq tempeh again. Don't hold your breath waiting for this one, tho, as it's going to be awhile before I do. Tempeh just isn't one of my favorite things, altho I'm still hoping to find a way to use that I really, really, really like.
One of my plans for either today or my next day off is to try to make a Chocolate-Banana-Coconut Pie, with...ready for this?!?!?...a Rice Crust. Over on the foodieblogroll, the ingredients for the January Royal Foodie Joust(RFJ from now on)are coconut or coconut milk, rice, and bananas. My immediate reaction to those was "PUDDING!" Then I gave it some more thought, and decided that maybe a pie could work, too. So, I bought the grated coconut and some bananas, as well as some more silken tofu, and I already have the cocoa powder and rice. Sooooooo, I'll let you know how it turns out. Seems to me that it should be absolutely rich, creamy, and good!!!
Until next time, Happy Eating!
First I put about a tablespoonful of evoo and one of margarine in a big skillet...the one I have is non-stick, but if you don't have one, well, don't sweat it. I diced up half a medium onion, and an 8-oz. package of tempeh, and when the oil and margarine were good and hot, put the onion and tempeh in the skillet, and just let them brown, stirring fairly often, probably for about ten minutes or so. During the last few minutes, I added a good teaspoonful of minced garlic, and some salt and pepper. The tempeh seemed to have sucked up all the grease, so I added about another tablespoonful of oil, this time using safflower oil, as I didn't really want the evoo taste in the gravy. Then I put about an 1/8C of all-purpose flour over the mixture, stirred it in well, and let it cook for a couple minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste. Then I added about a cup or so of soymilk...really don't know quite how much, just until I thought it was a little too thin, because as it cooks, it's going to thicken up. Brought the whole shebang to a gentle simmer, let it simmer for just a few minutes, and there it was: tempeh gravy!
Did I like it? Well, it was ok, and I'll probably make it again sometime, but believe it or not, the next time I do, I'm going to add a few squirts of honey to it. There was a slightly bitter taste in it, and I think a little honey would be just the thing to get rid of it.
Yesterday at Kroger, I bought another package of tempeh, and I also bought a honey-based bbq sauce to try, so one of these days I'm going to try bbq tempeh again. Don't hold your breath waiting for this one, tho, as it's going to be awhile before I do. Tempeh just isn't one of my favorite things, altho I'm still hoping to find a way to use that I really, really, really like.
One of my plans for either today or my next day off is to try to make a Chocolate-Banana-Coconut Pie, with...ready for this?!?!?...a Rice Crust. Over on the foodieblogroll, the ingredients for the January Royal Foodie Joust(RFJ from now on)are coconut or coconut milk, rice, and bananas. My immediate reaction to those was "PUDDING!" Then I gave it some more thought, and decided that maybe a pie could work, too. So, I bought the grated coconut and some bananas, as well as some more silken tofu, and I already have the cocoa powder and rice. Sooooooo, I'll let you know how it turns out. Seems to me that it should be absolutely rich, creamy, and good!!!
Until next time, Happy Eating!
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