SEITAN... not the bad guy, the Vegan food alternative

Whoever thought of the name seitan anyway. Does anyone know where it is derived from? You can read more about it here on Wikipedia but it still does not really explain where the name came from.

Well, I will tell you this about last Sunday's dinner. While everyone enjoyed their ribs (yes, I know I could have had one), I was really enjoying my seitan "rib". It was nice, knowing that I could have more of them and the flavor was really good. So sometimes the fattening choices are not the desirable choices.

Below is an excellent recipe for Seitan that I found this past summer. I did quite a bit of playing around with seitan. This recipe that Fat Free Vegan has is pretty good. I left out the liquid smoke as it stays with me, reminding me of it's flavor over and over again. Ugh.

Seitan, Rib Style
based on this recipe at Fat Free Vegan

1 cup vital wheat gluten
1 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
any type of barbecue sauce

Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly spray an 8x8 baking dish with canola oil. Mix gluten, paprika, nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder together. Combine soy sauce and canola oil and mix into the dry ingredients. Once combined, place on the counter and knead for about five minutes.

Place in baking pan and cut into 16 strips. Place in the oven at 350 degrees and bake for about 25 minutes.

Remove it from the oven and carefully re-cut each strip. Fry in a pan with barbeque sauce. Or you can grill it. (It's just a little too cold right now for that).