Vegetarian Wheat Meat

Don't you just love that name? Vegetarian Wheat Meat. It is such a "sweet" name. I think I will just call it Sweet Meat from now on. This week's dinners are from my new Vegetarian Times magazine. Today was Ultimate (almost) Vegan Chili and tomorrow is Garlic and Kale Soup. The chili called for seitan (sweet meat) and the soup called for wheat berries. Both can only be found at Whole Foods in our neck of the woods. I didn't feel like driving into Atlanta and since Matt was in the office working today I asked him to stop by WF on his way home. I only asked him to get the wheat berries for me. I knew, Just Knew, if I asked him to get me some vegetarian wheat meat that he would absolutely refuse. So to be sneaky...I made my own.

It was better than I thought it would be so I thought I'd share it with y'all. I followed this recipe.

Here's a spotty recap:
Start with some Vital Wheat Gluten. (I don't know what it is either but you can find it in the granola (natural food) section at your local grocery store.)
To the Wheat Gluten add ginger and garlic powder. In another bowl add chicken broth (or water to make it vegan,) and soy sauce. Mix together and then knead 10-15 times. You will have what looks to be a sweaty clump of "who knows what."

Break this sweaty clump of natural goodness into 3 or 4 pork chop looking filets. Then immerse them into a slow simmering bath of chicken broth, onions and other choice seasonings. (for details please check out the About.com link) Simmer one hour.

Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a kitchen towel. I added another towel on top to soak up the moisture. I also added a cookie sheet over the top towel and loaded it with all my kitchen top appliances to smash the moisture out of them.

They looked like rubber dumplings but they actually tasted very good. (seriously!) To make the chili I chopped them up into soggy crouton/sponge-like pieces. and then chopped up the rest of the ingredients.

carrots, onions, mushrooms, garlic, chili beans, tomato paste, seasonings, Worcestershire's, soy sauce, adobo chili and a cup of water.

add them all together and simmer for one hour or so.

and serve.

This was (according to me) very tasty and super filling.

This was (according to Matt) good but he'd prefer just veggies and beans...omit the seitan.

(He didn't feel this way until I couldn't keep a straight face when I told him the meat was chopped up hot dogs.)

For the record I liked this sweet meat much better than tofu and although it takes some time to cook it is very easy to make. Plus a serving of chili is only 5 weight watchers points. BONUS!!

Here's a preview of tomorrow's dinner. Matt's gonna love it.