What to Make & Eat This Week

Your weekly meal plan ideas and a special bonus!

Hello, and welcome to another Sunday edition of What to Make & Eat This Week.

Food is so comforting and elemental, especially in uncomfortable times, isn’t it? This week José Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, received a Presidental Medal of Freedom. So a brief segue before we go on to business as usual …

*** I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the residents of the L.A. area. It’s so hard to know what to say or do; I have two nephews who live there; one had to evacuate and one didn’t. Many of us are only one or two degrees of separation from someone who has lost everything and/or had their lives upended. I donated to World Central Kitchen, an amazing organization that goes into any and every disaster zone to comfort people with good food.**

In addition to your usual meal plans, I’m including my digital ebook, Homemade Seitan: An Easy Step-by-Step Guide, which includes 20 recipes for using this high-protein plant food. Usually sold on my Etsy Shop, scroll to the end for your gratis copy.

A caveat, seitan is not for the gluten-free! It’s pure gluten, the protein portion of wheat. For some reason, really good seitan isn’t so easy to come by in stores, surprising in this day and age when so many plant proteins are widely available. Which is why it’s so great to be able to make it easily at home. Our first recipe today will be seitan-centered, for anyone already a seitan fan or on the other hand, unfamiliar with it.

This week, we’ll be making …

• Buddha’s Delight — A Chinese Restaurant Copycat Recipe

• Vegan Baked Beans with Plant-Based Sausage

• Roasted Chickpea, Butternut Squash & Cauliflower Curry

• Winter Vegetable Miso Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms

And your bonus, a downloadable pdf of Homemade Seitan: An Easy Step-by-Step Guide

(Did you know that if you hit the heart at the bottom or the top of this post, it helps others discover my publication on Substack? Commenting and restacking is helpful, too. Thank you!)

Buddha’s Delight — A Chinese Restaurant Copycat Recipe

Featuring seitan, vegetables, baby corn, and mushrooms, this Buddha’s Delight recipe replicates a dish that has become a Chinese restaurant menu favorite. It’s an easy and delicious vegan dish to copycat at home!

Inspired by a traditional dish favored by Buddhist monks, this has become a Chinese restaurant vegetarian classic.

A bit about seitan

Made from cooked wheat gluten, seitan is sometimes called "wheat meat," as it resembles beef chunks. Dense and chewy, seitan is low in fat, high in protein, yet its earthy flavor won’t put off those who don't care for meat. Seitan can sometimes be found in natural foods stores, but none that I’ve tried are that great. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to make at home. See my Easy Homemade Seitan recipe, or scroll to the end to grab your copy of Homemade Seitan: An Easy Step-by-Step Guide, which also includes 20 recipes for using this versatile plant protein.

Swap-ins to use in Buddha's Delight

• For the vegetables: Feel free to substitute other vegetables for the ones listed here — cauliflower for broccoli, green beans or snap peas for snow peas, for example.

• For the plant protein: You can substitute tofu or plant-based beefy protein strips for the seitan.

If you’d like to use tofu, blot well, cut into dice, and stir-fry until golden and starting to turn crispy before starting the rest of the dish. Remove and set aside, then proceed with the recipe. Add the tofu back in in step 3.

Complete the meal: This could be a meal in itself, but I always like something fresh and raw on the side. A platter of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, and radishes would do nicely. You can also add vegetable spring rolls or dumplings to the meal, which can be found in your supermarket or natural foods freezer section.

This recipe makes 4 to 6 servings. For more tips and the printable recipe card, see the full post.

Ingredients

Seitan and vegetables

• 16 ounces seitan, cut into bite-size chunks (see Variation for
  tofu swap-in)

• 1 large bunch broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces

• 3 large carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally

• 6 to 8 ounce cremini or other mushrooms,
  or a combination of varieties, cleaned and sliced

• 2 cups or so snow peas, trimmed

The rest

• 1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil or dark sesame oil

• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 1/2 cups prepared vegetable broth

• 15-ounce can baby corn with liquid

• 2 teaspoons grated fresh or squeeze-bottle ginger

• 3 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot

• 1/3 cup teriyaki sauce, or to taste

• 2 scallions, thinly sliced

• 4 ounces hot cooked fine Asian rice noodles or rice as desired

Instructions

1. Prepare the seitan, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and snow peas as directed and set aside, as it all goes fast from the next step on.

2. Heat the oil in a stir-fry pan. Add the garlic and sauté over low heat for a minute or so.

3. Turn the heat up to high and add the broth, baby corn with its liquid, and ginger. Bring to a slow boil.

4. Add the seitan, broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms. Cook for just a couple of minutes, or until the broccoli is bright green and not quite tender-crisp.

5. Dissolve the cornstarch in just enough water or more broth to make it a smooth, flowing liquid. Stir into the pan along with the teriyaki sauce, snow peas, and scallions.

6. Cook briefly, just until the all the vegetables are tender-crisp. Err on the side of less cooking, as they’ll continue to soften as the dish stands.

7. Serve at once over cooked rice noodles or rice.

Tofu variation: If you’d like to use tofu, blot well, cut into dice, and stir-fry until golden and starting to turn crispy before starting the rest of the recipe. Remove and set aside, then proceed with the recipe. Add the tofu back in in step 3.

With all the flavor of the traditional oven-cooked dish, skillet vegan baked beans with plant-based sausage is delicious with a crusty dark bread like pumpernickel or a dark sourdough.