Smothered Seitan Medallions in Mixed Mushroom Gravy, Mashed Potatoes and Bok Choy

This seitan recipe is from Vegan Soul Kitchen; it was also featured in Vegetarian Times. I made a few changes. First we halved the recipe, we also cut our seitan into strips and dredged them in flour mixed with a little garlic powder and pepper versus arrowroot powder. I also cooked them in my cast-iron so that I could use much less oil (his recipe calls for over a cup of oil!). I didn't have time to make a mushroom stock and none of the ones at the store were vegan, so I subbed vegetable stock and used only cremini mushrooms because buttons were unavailable; I doubled the amount of mushrooms in the gravy to make up for the lack of mushroom stock. I also left out the cabbage, scallions, and parsley at the last part of the recipe (using only the jalapeno). Ok, I think that's it, I followed the rest of the recipe! For the potatoes we used golden Yukon and mashed them with a little bit of Earth Balance and soy milk and for the bok choy I just sauteed it in a bit of soy sauce and mirin. This was one tasty meal! Nothing from Bryant Terry has disappointed (except for the oil factor, but that's usually easily rectified) and this was another one to add to that list. The fried seitan simmers in the gravy and stock for 30 minutes giving it a great flavor and texture. The mushrooms were awesome, the sauce was awesome, it was just great.

Mustard Green and Roasted Yam Soup with Pistachio Corn-Crusted Tempeh

This soup from Vegan Soul Kitchen was all that a good soup should be. It was warming, filling, and tasty. The bitterness of the greens was tamed by the sweetness of the yams and the apple cider vinegar spiked broth accentuated both superbly. After roasting the yams and cooking the mustard greens this cooked for an additional 25 minutes; if I made this again I wouldn't cook it quite so long, everything got a bit mushy. Still good, but I'd like to try it again with the vegetables holding up a little better.


We paired the soup with Pistachio and Cornmeal-crusted tempeh from Vegan Fusion World Cuisine. This is the first thing I've made from this book that I didn't love. I feel like the topping would have been better on tofu (which is listed as an optional preparation), because even though the tempeh was marinated it was still a bit dry after topping and cooking to direction. It also didn't stay warm for long enough to even eat. Steaming the tempeh prior to prep may have improved on this. I made a couple of substitutions with this recipe: yellow corn meal for blue and regular corn chips for blue corn. I probably wouldn't make this again as there are so many other great tempeh recipes in this and other books.

Pasta with Vodka Sauce and Chilled Citrus Broccoli Salad

This pasta is a staple in our home--for us it was love at first bite. The recipe is from Veganomicon. It whips up in about half an hour and the sauce is made creamy and satisfying with the addition of ground almonds. I always add extra crushed red pepper than it calls for, and since this is usually made on a whim we just use whatever pasta we have in the house; tonight it was brown rice fusilli.

The broccoli salad consists of cooked broccoli covered in a dressing of orange, lemon, and lime juice with garlic and oil. Everything is mixed together and chilled before serving...super tasty. This is from Vegan Soul Kitchen. While the recipes from this book have all been amazing, many, like this one, call for a lot of oil. I usually leave out as much as I can, which has yet to affect the results too much.