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Hey Kids,

Good news all around! I've got 5000 Spirits (or The Layers of the Onion), the All Materia, and a killer breakfast soysage recipe (which is, actually, both vegan and soy-free). I'm only planning to share the last one.

If you're like me, then your grandfather made killer breakfasts with bacon, sausage, mushrooms, applesauce, and love, all fried up in a big cast iron skillet. You only got the last bit because you were a picky eater, and you've had to live with regret your whole life. Now that you've gone veggie, you'll never fully recreate pepaw's breakfast, but here's the next best thing:

Dry ingredients:
2 cups gluten flour
4 cloves minced garlic
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp rosemary
2 tsp marjoram
2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp sage
2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp thyme
2 tbsp brown sugar
OPTIONAL: 1/4 cup oatmeal

Wet ingredients 1:
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup water
1 tbsp tamari
2 tsp vegan worcestershire sauce (WIZARD BRAND)
1/4 tsp liquid smoke

Wet ingredients 2:
4 cups veggie stock
3 tbsp tamari
2 whole cloves garlic
2 bay leaves (these will be wet when you're using them).

Extra crap:
Cheesecloth, divided into 4 6"x6" peices


Killer. From here things are simple. Directions run in a trilogy.

Step 4: Combine the dry ingredients with themselves and mix them up. Now combine the Wet Ingredients 1 in a separate bowl. NOW combine the wet ingredients 2 in a THIRD bowl. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. This is all just character development and rising action. You don't even know that the tamari in the Wet Ingredients 1 is related to the tamari in Wet Ingredients 2.


Step 5: Now pour the Wet Ingredients 1 onto the Dry Ingredients and kneed FAST (like the only things between you and too tough, inedible sausages are 20 men in snowspeeders and one ion cannon). Because there are so many spices, it will quickly become hard to get the dough to stick to itself. Before this happens, divide it into four turd-like slices (now our main characters are all split up). Wrap each little turd in cheesecloth. If you want, you can freeze one of the wrapped turds, but this won't help anything and you'll just unfreeze it at the beginning of Step 6.


Step 6: Put all of the seitan chunks in a baking pan and pour the Wet Ingredients 2 over it. Seal the top. Put the covered pan in the oven for 1-1.25 hours. The seitan will find the good in the liquid and slowly absorb it until the liquid gives itself up to the force. Keep an eye on it, or enlist the aid of some cute fur-covered friends. Pull it out and let it sit until it cools before you remove the top.

You can refrigerate this stuff for a few weeks so long as you keep it moist. Cut it into 1/2 inch slices and pan-fry it in olive oil with whatever else you eat for breakfast, or use it instead of breakfast sausage in whatever recipe you want! MMMMMM! MM MM MMMMMM!

SATAN SO ' S (Seitan Tzo's)

Nihao, vegans, vegetarians, and veggie voyers. Here's what I'm doing: watching Alien on mute and laying down how to make an all-vegan version of General Tso's chicken for you, your friends, and your friends' friends! Mmmm tasty! This one came off a little rushed, so the pictures aren't perfect, but here's a french sci fi short to make you forget all about that!

Before we start, I've got to admit that vegan fried food imitation has reached a new pinnacle elsewhere. I had some hopes to do something like this, but I never dreamed of so perfect a double-down doppelganger. Stay in touch for my easier-to-cook but not quite as involved alternative.

Ok, back to the General. Recipe details:
Prep time: ~30 minutes in a rush or with friends; longer otherwise.
Stovetop units required: 3-4.
Serves: 6-8 (halve everything in the sauce and only use one packet of Seitan for a 2-3 person meal)

You will need the following things for frying:

1/2 cup all purpose flour (APF)
1/2 cup corn starch
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp Lowery's seasoned salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp paprika
1 Cup cool water
2 T canola oil

And for your sauce gather these:

6 T canola oil
4T chopped green onions
6 chopped cloves of garlic
2T shredded ginger
:)
4T cornstarch
( :)
1.5 Cups Vegetable Stock
4 T tamari sauce
1 T tomato paste
5 T granulated sugar
5 T brown sugar
1 T MSG (oh yeah, I cook with MSG, just to dispel the vegans are healthy myth. Pick this awesome flavor enhancer up at your local Asian food center and add liberally to all dishes)
@@@:)
4T water MIXED WITH 2T cornstarch
2T Cock Sauce
2T white cooking wine
2T apple cider vinegar

That's a lot of stuff! but we're not done: you'll also need:

3 8oz packages of Seitan (I'd recommend cubed West-Soy brand, traditionally seasoned. Or see the PS for Katy's Killer Kubes recipe)

A vat of oil

Two heads of broccoli.

Now for instructions. This is where things get hairy; start by prepping your fry batter and opening your seitan packages. Chop the green bits off of the broccoli and wastefully discard the stems, preferably outdoors. An ideal cooking division involves RED TEAM frying and BLUE TEAM making the sauce while monitoring the broccoli and rice.

RED TEAM : To prep the fry batter, just mix the dry ingredients (everything before the water), then add the water and oil, whipping enthusiatically. Dip your seitan chunks in here before frying. You'll want to start heating the oil now too--it's hot enough when drips of batter rise immediately to the surface. Red leader may want to start frying exactly when Blue leader starts cooking his onions. Fork the chunks out of the oil when they're crispy and golden-brown, then drop them onto a paper-toweled plate.

BLUE TEAM: This will be a bit hairy. If you haven't started the rice yet, you've already fucked up. I'm not going to tell you how to make your rice, so get to it. Start water boiling to steam your brocolli; you'll want to hover the broccoli over the boiling water in a colander for about three minutes or until it's nice and soft but Don't Do That Yet, I Will Tell You When To Do That.

Pop the oil in a pan, and then add everything before the ':)'. That's this stuff:


(except for the chopped seitan, you should let RED TEAM handle that).

HOLY SHIT THE ALIEN JUST JUMPED OUT OF THAT DUDE'S CHEST!

Ok, wait for the onions and garlic to get all soft and clear, and then add the 4T cornstarch; stir. You're doing great! Add everything between homer and marge--'( :)' and '@@@:)'--and stir like a maniac. (That's veggie broth, tomato paste, tamari, sugars, and MSG).

NOW drop the broccoli filled colander over the boiling water! Great! Is your blood pumping? No? Yell at RED TEAM and make sure they're almost done with the frying. Power trip. Add the remaining sauce ingredients and stir psychopathically, not forgetting to keep an eye on the broccoli. This is what things should look like:


While the sauce is thickening, grab the broccoli off the back burner, because it's probably done now, and stick it in the bowl you set aside just for greenery.

THIS is the rendezvous point for RED TEAM and BLUE TEAM. As soon as the sauce thickens from the cornstarch (you'll know), start dumping in the fried hunks of seitan. Add about five or six at a time, stir them around, and pop them out:



Great job, you! You're done! Once you eat this, you become an official General of Satan. If you've got any sauce left after you coat the seitan hunks, pour it over the broccoli and the rice (did you forget the rice? Is it burned? Awwww. AWWW). Serve everything up separately and allow folks to combine as desired:


















PS: Ripley is now embroiled in a whitey-tighty clad duel with that giant phallus, so I don't have time to do a whole how-to on Seitan making. While you wait, here's the recipe I used to home-make Seitan for a pure from-scratch Tso's experience, thanks entirely to Katy Meadows. Midweek I'll post my breakfast sausage recipe and include cooking instructions to go along with Katy's great ingredients:

2 cups gluten flour
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp whole fennel seeds
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
2/3 tsp ground nutmeg
1 ½ tsp ground sage
¼ tsp dried red chile flakes, plus more to taste
2 tsp sea salt
¼ cup canola oil
4 tbsp tamari
1 cup water

4 pieces single-layer cheesecloth, cut into 6x4-inch pieces

4 cups vegetable stock or water
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves (these last things get poured over the seitan, which is wrapped in the cheesecloth, for an hourlong bake at 400 degrees))

Vegan Dragon Wings

Hello vegan kids and veggie supporters. Today we're going to learn to make deep-fried vegan dragon wings, buffalo style, and with spiciness from wild to mild! This is all vegan, perfect for planet-earth watching parties, and serves 6ish.

Gather:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon seasoned salt

These things

Mix all of these wonderful tasty things together in a bowl.

Get two packages tempeh, cuz that works best. Chop it up into finger-sized chunks (~15 per package) and dip each chunk into a bowl of fake egg (I use EnerG Egg Replacer, but I've heard you can do magic with flax seeds--you'll need the equivalent of 2 eggs). Then, roll the fake-egg covered wing-substitute in the flour and spices. MMMMMM. Now put all these flour-covered wingy fellas on a plate and refrigerate them for an hour or so (this isn't really necessary, but it helps the flour stick).

Good Job, You! We did it!

Heat up some oil in a deep fryer, pot, or pan. I use canola oil for this sort of deal--you need enough for the wings to be totally submerged and you need oil with a decently high smokepoint, so don't go with highfalutin' oils made from olives or grapeseed; peanut and vegetable oil are great, corn oil is ok.

Also, gather:

Everyone ought to have at least two hotsauces in the home.

1/2 cup Texas Pete hot sauce
~3/8 cup vegan margarine (Earth Balance or Willow Run)
5+ cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons of vegan (WIZARD BRAND!) worcestershire sauce (optional)
1 teaspoon whiskey (optional)
1 Tablespoon Cock Sauce (Sriracha), or to taste (you heat loving maniacs)
1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar (Honey vegans may use honey here)
1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke
a little bit of black pepper.

This group of stuff will make medium dragon wings. To bump these up, double or triple the dose of Sriracha. To scale things back, drop the cock.

Heat the butter in a saucepan on low heat (NOT the oil pan); when it melts, add the garlic. When that's softened up and all translucenty, add the hot sauce and everything else (NOT including the flour and shit in the fridge; leave that out). Let all of this simmer uuuncovered. Capisce?

Now get ready. Your pan oil should be popping. Here's a test: flick water into it--does oil jump the heck out onto your face? Because it should. Be careful.

Start dropping the wings in the oil. The should be poppin' and sizzlin' so that you can't even see them after you drop them in. When they're golden brown, fish them out with a fork and put them on a plate (if you have a fry basket, this is way easier). Put a paper towel or cloth on the plate for to soak up the oiliness.

They should each fry for a little less than two minutes. Once you've got a bunch of them out, stop the simmering of the buffalo sauce (that's what is now in the saucepan) and dip the wings in it. It should have been going for at least 10 minutes after you added everything. Bonus tip: a great way to do this is by putting the wings in some tupperware, pouring the sauce over them, and shaking the whole thing like a Polaroid picture.

Put them all on a big plate with some celery and let them cool for a few (5-10) minutes before you eat them. MMMM super tasty! Enjoy.