Hungry Hungry Kyle

Kyle is too lazy to type up a guest post.  But ask beg and you shall receive…  

Here’s a recap of his evening in the kitchen, hippie-style.  So without further ado…

Candle Cafe’s Seitan Skewers with Chimichurri Citrus-Herb Sauce

I found two recipes online and combined them for the marinade with the following proportions:

• 1 cup fresh orange juice
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (thank you bumper crop!)
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 ½ tbsp vegan sugar
• 3/4 cup chopped parsley
• 1 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 ½ tsp sea salt

Put it all in a blender and blend for 30 seconds.

Pour into a container over the seitan. 

Instead of making seitan, I bought it already cubed.  The vacuum packaging doesn’t help with the aesthetics.

West Soy’s wheat protein (admittedly looking quite suspect – and that’s putting it nicely) broke apart into chunks which I then combined with the chimichurri sauce.

I marinated the seitan in the refrigerator for about 90 minutes before putting them on the skewers. 

 

Once on skewers, I barbecued them on a high temperature for about 6 minutes (I rotated once after 3 minutes).  The timing isn’t too scientific, just flip them once the seitan begins to brown on the outside. 

There was a lot of extra sauce leftover.

 

The flavor of the sauce wasn’t what I expected at all, but it was really good.  I was thinking it would be spicier or something?  It ended up more citrusy than I was anticipating.  It still had a good balance of herbs while not overpowering the dish.  It’s pretty versatile too, and the leftovers will go well with almost anything.  Rice.  Meat.  Whatever. 

For dessert, I made a vegan apple deep dish pie with a graham cracker crust.  I think this is basically what went into it:

Vegan Graham Cracker Pie Crust

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/3 cup melted vegan butter (Earth Balance/vegan buttery spread)
• 1/3 cup vegan sugar
• 2 tbsp cinnamon
• ~ a few tablespoons of water (as needed to soften, used as a substitute for more butter)

I mixed all the ingredients with a spatula until the mix was roughly the same consistency.

Then, I smooshed (I think that’s a technical cooking term) the mix onto the small bread pan so that the crust was about 1 centimeter thick on all sides.

For the apple filling, I peeled a few fuji apples. 

Before and after pics. 

Vegan Apple Pie Filling

• 2 ½ organic fuji apples, peeled and sliced
• 1 ½ tbsp of flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 ½ tbsp of vegan sugar
• optional: a handful of carob chips

Once the filling was mixed and consistent, I just poured it into the deep dish pie crust. 

It baked at 400 for 25 minutes. 

After removing it from the oven, we let it sit for about 10 minutes and then served it up.

Voila!

There was extra pie filling which was too delicious to waste, so I added some to another (crust-less) bread pan using tin foil so it wouldn’t stick to the pan.

Even after making the second pie, there was still more raw filling (so Elise ate it uncooked).

 

By the end of the night, no pie remained.

Elise here again!  Isn’t my husband’s cooking impressive?  Vegan chef in the making…  🙂

I have to admit, I rarely let him cook for me, not because he doesn’t want to, but more because I love cooking (and let’s face it, I’m a control freak in the kitchen). 

So let me hear it:  Do you prepare most of your own meals?  Do your significant other’s know how to cook?  Anyone ever prepared a special meal for you?