How I Spent My Saturday Night

Easter is coming! And as much as I would love to avoid junk food with the kids, there's only so much lip balm that I can stuff into each plastic egg featured in our hunt.

I've been buying allergen-free candy for the past few holidays from the Natural Candy Store, but it's starting to get warmer and I don't want to add the freezer pack cost to the already expensive cost to ship to Canada.

So, I add yet another thing I make from scratch: chocolate Easter eggs. I bought molds and coloured foil from Bulk Barn and melted some Enjoy Life chocolate. I used a squeeze bottle, but next time I will temper the chocolate then fill a disposable icing bag to dispense.

I've also got some Easter chocolate lollipops setting to. But I don't know how to add more than one pic from the mobile blogger and arrange the order in which to present it! I would say that could be another lame project for next Saturday night, but I'll be busy doing prep for a big vegan spread that is allergy-free for little Kyson!

The Best Seitan Recipe in the World!

I've been promising this for awhile, but I need to share now that I've gotten it typed up.  Based on VeganDad's Veggie Lunch Meat, this seitan loaf lasts us all week, and provides one of our main sources of protein.  You can slice it for sandwiches, dice it for stir fries, grind it for spaghetti sauces.  It's really that versatile.  And cheap!  I'll estimate that even with my having to use extra-special wheat gluten (I order from NOW Foods from the States which is so expensive to ship, yet safe with all our allergies compared to Bob's Red Mill), it costs about $10 to make.  That's a great price in these trying economic times!  While not gluten-free by any means, it is soy-free, nut-free and even legume-free (for maybe the only other two people in the world who are allergic to them like my son!).


Sarah's Seitan


2 cups water

1 cup cooked quinoa

½ cup nutritional yeast

1/3 cup olive oil

1 scoop of rice protein or hemp protein powder

1 tbsp maple syrup

2 tsp salt

2 tsp paprika

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp pepper

Few dashes of liquid smoke (optional)

2 3/4 cups vital wheat gluten

Place all ingredients except the gluten flour in a bowl process until smooth with an immersion blender. Add gluten flour and work into a dough.

Shape dough into a log and wrap in heavy duty foil like a tootsie roll. Steam for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove seitan from steamer and bake for 45 minutes.

Cool, then store in the fridge.  Freezes beautifully!


Some pics of this in action...

I've now entered 2012 instead of 2002...I'm on twitter!  And I just downloaded the Blogger app to my phone!  Hurray!