Since Carnival is in full swing (so I hear, it’s not like inland Southern California is Mardi Gras central), I thought I’d do a few days of vegan pseudo (and not so pseudo) New Orleans food. I’m sure Guy is rolling his eyes right out of his head at the thought.

Instead of using Joanna’s spice blend, I just used the salt-free variety of Tony Charchere’s (oh ho, I’m such a fucking local now), and tried the vacuum-sealed ‘high protein’ (?) super-extra-firm tofu from Trader Joe’s. I should have probably used my usual organic water packed extra-firm, because this kind is almost rubbery, so it’s probably not ideal for broiling. Other than that, I love that it’s practically a shake-and-bake sort of process. No batter fingers here, thank you very much. I put some Red Rooster on top because it’s a little on the dry side.

The collards are really, really good. (Thanks, kittee!) Of course, being a born and raised Malibu Stacey, I’ve never had them before. These are really smoky and full of flavor, pretty much exactly what I expected. And they’re not full of grease, like I imagine the original recipe to be. And it’s so easy, even dazee can make it.

Unfortunately, I took a nap when I got home from work, so it’s now too late tonight for me to get working on the king cakes. Hell, I wasn’t even going to make this, but when I woke up I turned the tv on and Emeril was on (ugh), doing a NOLA theme show and talking about how the food isn’t pretty but it’s damn tasty. I saw that as somewhat of a sign and got off my ass.

Beer Battered Chicken-style Seitan & Mushroom Gravy, Steamed Asparagus

Coconut Chocolate Pudding

Yellow Rose Recipes came in the mail the day before yesterday and I wasted no time in making a batch of chicken-style seitan cutlets. My main gripe with seitan recipes is that the vast majority of them are beef-style.  I’ve said it a thousand times, but I hated red meat even as an omni, so beef-style seitan really doesn’t appeal to me. Hail to Joanna for making an amazing, awesome recipe. If I had kneaded the dough by hand and maybe a bit longer (Kitchen Aid mixer dough hook FTW), chances are I could have produced super firm cutlets that would be omni-friendly as a chicken patty sammich. These are so, so, so, so good.

I’m not real great with breading and frying things yet, but I think I did pretty well with these. The tricky part is in the second frying – the beer batter really doesn’t want to stay put. I think in the future, I’ll try dusting the seitan with cornstarch before battering. The mushroom gravy is pretty good, but I think next time I’ll want to try the Vegan with a Vengeance Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy since it’s a little more suited to my personal tastes. I even remembered to steam up a vegetable, I’m a good kid.

For dessert, I whipped up the Coconut Chocolate variant of the Chocolate Pudding recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance. I’ve been experimenting with pudding recipes lately, and while I do like how this one came out, it’s very ‘homemade’ tasting. If you want something that’s ‘pudding cup’ish, go with the recipe from the Sarah Kramer books that’s basically silken tofu and friends in a blender. I do notice that all of these recipes are all chocolate flavored, and I’m wondering how to go vanilla with it. Extract would be too alcohol-y to try to use a lot, so I’m thinking instead of cocoa powder in these recipes, to maybe use vanilla soy milk powder. Go with vanilla flavor (glycerin based) instead of extract? Hmm… I’ll have to experiment.