seitan doggie dogs

YES! Seitan Dogs!! As promised, I have created the home made veggie dog that trumps extruded paste dogs from your grocer's freezer. I made a double batch of seitan this time, half of which went to one big log for sandwich slice purposes, and the rest I rolled into mini logs for dog purposes. The seitan dough was much harder to shape than I thought. You can kind of get it into an ellipse, but the rest happens when it gets rolled into the foils.

Dan had a bag of sweet whole wheat dog buns from WW, so I toasted up a dog right out of the oven for added crispiness, along with the bun. I was set to put all kinds of fussy toppings on there, but he said hot dogs should only be topped with mustard and ketchup, which was a good point. I still couldn't completely help myself, and served it in an origami-ed wax paper carriage.

Addendum: I was really proud of this photo. I shot it on a white countertop, lit by the stove light at a very fast film speed and shallow depth of field. It only required a little color correction.

So, I made a pretty ok sandwich.

I opened the fridge around lunch time. Opening the fridge reminds me most of the time of cooking plans that didn't materialize. Like that basil that was on its way out because I wasn't getting stoked on the pesto I was supposed to make this week. So I told myself to get off my ass and make good.

Whole wheat bread from the fridge had to do. No time to bake my own, though it's easy enough. I like the No Knead recipe because who has time to really do the whole bread baking thing? It's surprisingly good for how little effort is involved.

I made a pretty standard pesto: basil, pine nuts, salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic.

The day before, I tried a new seitan recipe that requires baking rather than boiling. I really love this concept. I altered the seasoning a little (it is reminiscent of pepperoni) and maybe in the future it would be fun to do a stuffed version. I think there is also potential there for a veggie dog that is not just a bunch of extruded soy paste. (Another shortcut confession: I used vital wheat gluten flour rather than forcing the gluten out of wheat dough which takes 8796984 hours.)

Ugh boiled seitan. Talk about disaster stories. I challenge anyone to tell me that their boiled seitan was anywhere near baked in quality. Or even approached store-bought.
Anyway. Sauteed the seitan with some spinach that was turning in the fridge as well.

Bang. Sandwich. Stacked on some carrot matchsticks and sliced avocado. Then I ate it. It was fine.

In conclusion: Sammich challenge? Stuff turning in the fridge challenge?