Thank You Peter Brady?

Isa's post yesterday immediately called to mind my childhood as she remembered Peter Brady saying, “Pork chops and appleshauche, porkchops and appleshauche…” However when I was done reminiscing, and it did take a while, I remembered that the combination of pork chops and applesauce was quite good. Could it be that seitan really would work as well? Isa seemed to think so.

First let me say, Isa's recipe is probably seven billion times better than what I did but in spite of this, I was pretty pleased with the results. Also, I would never have come up with this in a thousand years if she hadn't written that post. So go over there and try hers, I'll join you when all my kids move out.

I was intrigued by her mention of using chickpea flour in place of nutritional yeast. I never thought of them as substitutes for each other. I figured what the heck and gave it a try. I used the very much simplified seitan recipe from Veganomicon as my base recipe. Holy cow, that is the simplest seitan recipe I've ever seen and it tastes great. Jim liked it much better than any of the other versions I make. I confess, I did bake my seitan for 1 1/2 hours at 325 degrees in a covered pan. I just like the texture so much better using this method.

Once my seitan was cooking, and warming up my once chilly kitchen, I pondered my next move. I had plenty of apples but with kids I walk a fine line. Did I dare include ginger? In the end, I opted to just chop 6 appples and simmer then down into applesauce. I added nothing to them because they are some of the tastiest Cortland apples I've ever encountered. BTW, I always leave the skins on the apples.

For a side dish, I chopped some onions, and carrots and sauteed them in olive oil before adding some bulgur. I served this along with a mixed green salad, probably one of the last of the year, compliments of our CSA.

Serving is important around here since the need to segregate food on the dinner plate is still a priority to some of my kids. I opted to put the applesauce next to the seitan rather than on top but I urged everyone to combine with reckless abandon.

The reaction was mixed as everyone came to the table, although I saw a gleam of recognition in Jim's eye (perhaps he too was channeling Peter Brady.) Once everyone got over their initial suspicion, the meal was a big hit. I'm definitely filing that one away for future use.