Stir fry with seitan

This is the basic recipe for a basic Asian style sesame sauce:

For a half-pound of meat, or equivalent veggies, mix

• 1 clove crushed garlic
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (I use low sodium)
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons water
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger

Marinate whatever you wish to season. I would recommend leaving it in the sauce for a while.

Now from here, I'm making some spaghetti noodles because I'm out of rice. I'll fry them and make them like lo mein. I'm using the seitan I made yesterday as my meat. And california blend vegetables, which I plan to marinate in whatever sauce the wheat meat (seitan) doesn't soak up.

Crab rolls

Here's another one of my wing-and-a-prayer efforts:













In a bowl I mixed:

• 1 bag Asian slaw from wegmans (about 5 cups of Napa Cabbage, carrots and celery)
• About one cup bean sprouts
• one small can fancy lump crab meat
• two teaspoons fresh dill

I used this as filling for some egg roll wrappers and since I didn't have any eggs, sealed them with corn starch in water. The egg roll wrappers were pre-made, I believe they were Melissa's.

I fried mine in my Le Creuset skillet. I layered the skillet with less than 1/4 inch of canola oil, and rolled them after a few minutes so I could get each side.

Now the vegetable egg rolls I love at Wegmans are $6 for 5. I paid about $10 for all the ingredients for these and the yield is 15, with some filling left over for the tortoise.

Served with thai plum dipping sauce and low sodium soy sauce. My only complaint is I should have filled them more.

A few days after this post, a fancier recipe site posted a more gourmet Vietnamese spring roll recipe. I'll include the link:

http://laurasbestrecipes.com/2009/04/vietnamese-spring-rolls-with-peanut-sauce.html

Cornbread and sausages

Tonight I'm planning cornbread and spinach-asiago chicken sausages. I had planned to make Eileen Bresslin's vegan cornbread recipe but I ran out of soy milk.

Eileen's recipe:

Preheat oven to 350. These muffins, or cornbread, need to go in a hot oven as soon as they're mixed.

• 1.5 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1.5 cups soy milk
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients. In separate bowl, mix wet ingredients. Pour liquid into dry, mix until just combined. Bake 30-40 minutes. Note: You may not need quite that much oil.

I added parsley and flax seed to mine tonight.

Now for the sausage... I decided to try and make a sauce. In the bottom of the pan I started with:

• About 1/4 cup apple juice
• About 1/4 cup chicken broth
• About one teaspoon cornstarch

Whisk as bring to a boil to reduce and thicken. It smelled sweet, so I added:

• About 1/2 teaspoon four color peppercorns
• About 3/4 teaspoon garlic pepper
• About 3/4 teaspoon garlic
• About 1/8 teaspoon curry

After it seriously thickened, I added:

• three spinach asiago chicken sausages, sliced
• about 1 cup French cut green beans, frozen and thawed in the microwave

Then I served with the cornbread, using some of the excess sauce as gravy.

(Note: These are the same sausages I got at the warehouse club a few weeks ago and had in the freezer. We've eaten them in pasta sauce, and as sausage sandwiches, and now this funky recipe.)