Adventures with Seitan

One full week...no meat/caffeine/bread/refined sugar. (Small confession: I had 1 1/2 shots of vodka with juice last night and actually FELT the effects...)

While I was trolling the Internet, I got the idea to make some BBQ "Pork" using seitan, a wheat protein that has a consistency similar to meat.  I've had seitan before, many years ago, from a vegan restaurant in New York.  I wasn't too crazy about it at the time.

I purchased a box of seitan strips by West Soy. Eight ounces of this stuff cost $3.99. At $7.98 per pound, this clearly will not become a staple in my diet.

When it first comes out of its vacuum sealed package, it looks less than appetizing (sort of like brains) and smells vaguely of wet bread.

It starts to look better after I pull it apart and chop it into pieces.

Meanwhile, I diced 1/2 onion and sauteed it with a couple cloves of garlic. While that was in the pan, I prepared my sauce (okay, so I just doctored some bottled Open Pit sauce by adding cayenne and mustard. I would have ordinarily used a ton of brown sugar, too, but...well...no sugar.) Then I put the seitan in the pan, poured the sauce over it, and let it all simmer for about 15 minutes.  And, voila!

I am not going to sit here and type that this tasted like BBQ pork shoulder, because lightening would strike me dead. However, it was good. If I were a real meat-lover before now, this would probably help me through the initial meat-free period, but I think I would rather have no meat than fake meat. Maybe I'll bring it to summer BBQs so I'll "fit in" with the people eating meat, but I don't think I'll buy this again for a regular meal.

Now...off to continue my quest for soy vodka!