Fried-Chicken .... no meat please

I am running pretty low on groceries right now. Usually I do the whole "meal planning" thing on Sundays, go shopping, pre-cook anything I need to and I have a healthy week ahead of me. This week I am running on pantry staples- so I've already made pizza and pasta this week! And eaten a ton of salads. When I got home, I was scrambling for some meal ideas that involved canned beans and tomatoes, because that's about all we have left.



Then I remembered that I was just talking about fried chicken yesterday with a coworker and fellow vegetarian. Lo and behold, I had chicken- style seitan in the fridge. So why not make it unhealthy to please my husband? I found a recipe for cornmeal-crusted seitan in Nava Atlas' Vegan Express:

1 package chicken-style seitan
1/4 cup cornmeal (I only had white - but it worked) mixed with 3/4 cup boiling water
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast (noosh)
1 1/2 Teaspoon salt-free seasoning (like Mrs. dash)
1/4 tsp salt (to replace the salt you just avoided by using the salt-free seasoning).
Mix it all up and coat the seitan.
Fill a skillet with some olive oil for "frying" It's like frying chicken - so the seitan pieces need room to breathe. Put each piece in until crispy and brown on each side. It took me about 15 minutes to get it all done. Drain on paper-towels of course, you can't eat all of that oil.

On the side: Cheese girts with corn. Basically make some grits (1 cup), throw in some thawed corn kernels (1.5 cups), and some margarine if you like (1.5 tablespoons) and add some vegan cheese (I used Daiya - but it didn't taste super awesome in this recipe).

I had some steamed broccoli on the side - and a salad of course (green, golden beets, cucumber, red peppers, scallions).


Oh and the other delicious looking lump on the plate? I made no-knead honey oat bread. It took 2 days to prepare- but luckily it was worth the wait. HOLY crap it was good! The recipe can be found here. I unfortunately just looked at the calorie content - wowee - but it was very, very, very good.





So yes, vegan cooking can be Southern-ized in the most unhealthy of ways. A day of more salads awaits me now!