Sunday, January 27, 2008

My new favorite ingredient



is "vital wheat gluten," which was very instrumental in making the yummy dinner shown above. We tried the chickpea cutlet recipe which has been floating around. (If you google "chickpea cutlets," you'll see lots of other reviews.) I've always been dubious of fake meat; I really hate processed foods and there are some scary ingredients in some of those. But I can get behind the chickpea cutlets as a tasty and satisfying main course. The only change I would make in the future is to replace the thyme and sage with black pepper. I just don't care for the taste of those spices, and I think the recipe calls for too much thyme.

We served them chicken-parmesan style, topped with a spicy mushroom spagetti sauce and parmesan. Yes, that is real parmesan. As I've said before, I can greatly reduce my cheese consumption, but I can't give it up entirely.

Leave a comment if you've tried the cutlet recipe!

PS: The most interesting thing I ate this weekend was probably ginger-eggplant chutney at an Indian restaurant in DC. Strangely, it was red and did not taste strongly of eggplant or ginger. But it was slightly sweet and intriguing. I want to have a chutney-making day before the weather turns warm. Let me know if you have any good recipes!

5 comments:

Liz Ranger (Bubble Tea for Dinner) said...

I like that idea of using marinara! I did end up warming up to the whole cutlet thing, after reheating them the next day and consciously NOT expecting them to taste like the most perfect food in the world, they were actually really really good. I agree with adjusting spices to taste, but the gluten flour + bean concept is gold, eh? :)

Amy said...

I'm not much of a fan of thyme either and left it out (can't remember what I replaced it with, majoram I think).

Oooh I hadn't thought to make pyjama's with them. Love the idea! I'll definitely be trying this one and soon (like maybe tomorrow night seeing as I'm half prepped with tonights dinner).

Alas, I can't quite give up my cheese either. I come close, but maybe it's about as close as it's going to get.

Tofu Mom (AKA Tofu-n-Sprouts) said...

Even tho I don't have V'con, I did make these the other day and LOVED them. I breaded and fried them and put some mushroom-sour cream (tofutti) gravy over. They were heavenly!

Of course there are some fake meats I love too so maybe I'm not the best judge. Heh.

Anonymous said...

I always thought you had too much thyme on your hands.

hs

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

I've got to make those cutlets!!!