Roasted Okra and Jalapeño & Vegetable Gratin

Oven roasted okra and jalapeño & vegetable gratin.

The okra was tossed with olive oil, salt & pepper and garlic powder and oven roasted until tender. The gratin had jalapeño peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, Teese, Tofutti better than cream cheese and panko breadcrumbs. There's also some mushroom pizza in the background (top left) that was leftover from yesterday.

I used about 10-15 peppers and didn't wear gloves when cutting/handling them. My hands were burning for a few hours. Tomato sauce (jarred) was the only thing that seemed to get them to stop burning.

Mental note: wear gloves when handling hot peppers or don't bother with them at all.

ETA: And pronounce it right, people! :D (thanks Vincent for the link)

ETA Again: Do try oven roasted okra. Not as good (IMHO) as breaded and deep fried okra, but it's a lot easier and still super tasty.

Seitan "Parmesan"

Seitan, breaded and fried with Cheezly "mozzarella" on top of spaghetti with homemade slow-simmered tomato sauce.

We had a ton of tomatoes to use up along with some green pepper, mushrooms and celery. I though that was the start of a great sauce so I chopped, seasoned and simmered until the sauce was thick and very reduced (about 2 hours). I didn't bother peeling or de-seeding the tomatoes because I don't mind the skins and seeds.

I whipped up a batch of seitan in the meantime to go along with it. We had some really crappy seitan yesterday (not made by me) so I wanted to made some good stuff today. I used Joy's basic seitan (tester) recipe with my own modifications and with Italian herbs and then simmered, chilled, breaded and fried it.

I literally spent all afternoon on this dish, making everything from scratch aside from the Cheezly and pasta noodles. Was it worth it? I think so!

Breaded & Fried Seitan (Vegan Tonkatsu)

I'm a seitan junkie so I love trying lots of different ones. The basic seitan recipe is a tester recipe for Joy Tienzo with a few of my own modifications thrown in. Texture was perfect: dense but not rubbery, tender but not spongy.

After cooking (simmering in broth), I let them cool in the fridge and then dredged the pieces in flour, soy milk and panko crumbs, then fried them and topped with tonkatsu sauce. On the side: mushroom rice pilaf and brussel sprouts.