Buddha soup

I think this is a dumb name for a soup, but I co-opted it from the Loving Hut menu.

Regardless, it was really good, with lots of fungus and shiitake, and mustard cabbage, broccoli, carrots, and Chinese peas.  I think the devil would approve of this religiously named soup.  HAIL SEITAN!!

Vegan chili

I made this chili with a base of zucchini and cauliflower in place of the traditional meat, with onions and garlic.  Stewed tomatoes provided the "gravy", enhanced by mushroom seasoning, and spiced up with chili and cumin powders, a little bit of oregano, and then later doused with some hellfire hot habanero sauce.  HAIL SEITAN!!

Natto pan

I tried natto pan this weekend.  It's fermented soy beans (natto), rotten as old Lucifer himself, on a piece of toast (pan).  I had it with avocado, apples, sweet potato, and tomatoes on the side.

It is in keeping with one of the concepts of ichi-ju san-sei, which says that you should have five colors on your plate - green (avocado), yellow (apples), red (tomatoes), black (sweet potatoes) and white (bread).  Harmonious in its color variation, like a chorus of demons.  HAIL SEITAN!!

Vegan soy katsu, kari kari ume onigiri and yasai

I bought some devilishly good vegan soy katsu sticks from Marukai this weekend, and paired it with a kari kari ume musubi, shishito peppers, tsukemono and gobo kinpira.  This was a really good lunch and the deep frying of the katsu was wicked good!!  HAIL SEITAN!!

Vegan soy meat with potatoes and Brussels sprouts

This is one of my favorite lunches - sliced Japanese vegan soy meat, seasoned with shoyu and garlic, on top of roasted potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts.  Though I burnt the Brussels sprouts in the oven, even the blackened burnt leaves were really tasty!  With Tabasco brand sriracha to kick up the hellfire and a tall cup of jasmine tea, it was just about perfect!  HAIL SEITAN!!

Sweet sour seitan

I made seitan this weekend and refrigerated the steaks.  Last night, I cut them into chunks, deep fried them in batter, and added them to a stir fry of bell peppers, celery and pineapples, in a sauce of ketchup, vinegar and cornstarch.

I think next time, I'll make a thicker batter that uses baking powder and baking soda.  This batter just ended up not really providing any texture.  HAIL (sweet sour) SEITAN!!

Hail Seitan

Seitan takes a little bit of work to make, but the results are great!!  It's not quite meaty....  it's much chewier than regular meat without the striated texture of muscle tissue, but I'm trying different ways of making that happen.  I tried adding some tofu skins, but it just served to make the seitan steaks break apart easier.  With garlic and onions and soy and mushroom powder, these had a really great taste.

I don't think of it as a meat substitute.  Rather, it's a nice protein to put into stir fries, etc.

HAIL SEITAN!!

Beyond Meat Burger and Fries

Beyond Meat is a new company that makes plant based burgers that have the taste and texture of flesh (how's that for evil?)

It even bleeds, due to the presence of beet juice.  It grills up nicely and rather quickly over the coals of hell, and is quite convincing snuggled in a bun with the usual condiments.  It was expensive, but worth it.  HAIL SEITAN!!

Sweet potatoes

A Japanese lunch

A typical breakfast

"A typical", or "atypical".  Both!

It's a typical breakfast for me, but probably very atypical of what most people eat for breakfast.  Some items change from day to day, but they always have a half apple or pear, some sweet potato slices, an avocado and some kidney beans.  Most of the time I'll have a slice of sourdough toast, (in the above picture, I substituted rice with wakame), and some other vegetable - in the above picture, bittermelon stir fried with tofu.

When I have toast, the textural differences of the crunch of the toast and apple pair well with the really soft avocado and kidney beans.  The bittermelon packs a lot of umami that's balanced by the creamy richness of the avocado.  The sweetness of the apples and sweet potatoes pair nicely with the salty seaweed.  And the fiber of everything helps keep me full for a long time.  It's a perfectly balanced meal, and gets me several servings of fruits and vegetables.

I eat this almost every day and never get tired of it.

HAIL SEITAN!!!