Teriyaki Seitan

This past weekend was the DISKovery Holiday Potluck.  It was nice to socialize with all of the awesome people who help keep our computer lab running and who make use of the classes and public computer access.  I finally was able to get my grandma's recipe for teriyaki marinade, so I felt it was time to make some serious teriyaki seitan.

Teriyaki Seitan

2 lbs seitan (or however much you want.  I used homemade, but any fake beefy seitan would work well)
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup good strong soy sauce
2 T sake, sherry, or vodka (I used vodka)
1/2 t salt
2 t grated fresh/frozen ginger
1 clove minced garlic
green onion

Mix up the marinade and let the seitan soak up the tastiness for at least 3 hours, but the longer, the better. I fried up the slices of seitan along with some onion, carrot, and edamame.

I think many of the potluck attendees did not know this was fake meat when they tried it, but they really enjoyed it and all of the seitan was gone by the end of the party!  I love sharing tasty food with people, and I'm so glad that this turned out well.  My grandma is awesome, what can I say?

The sauce/marinade is very gingery and garlicky, and the sugar carmelizes when you cook the seitan.  Om nom nom.

I also made a couple of batches of gifflar filled with apples and apple butter.  Ahh I'm almost getting tired of baking and cooking.  After the holidays, maybe it'll be time to take a break and just eat french fries.

Pea Greens

Pea greens.  They're the tips of pea plants, complete with flowers, stems, and frondy tentacles.  They might look like they will ensnare you, but these greens are in fact versatile, slightly sweet, and benign despite appearances.

And sometimes, the flowers contain little baby pea pods!

I bought these pea greens from the farmer's market after seeing them week after week but being too afraid to invest.  They're actually pretty cheap here, $1.50 for about a pound of greens.  I like this because I'm frugal and because I'm on a very tiny Americorps stipend.

Although some people say they taste like peas (and I was hoping they would), the flavor is much milder.  They do taste somewhat of peas, but they also taste slightly of spinach.  They're crunchy when raw, and I thought they'd make a fresh and mild addition to a stir fry.

I tossed them with homemade seitan, soy sauce, a bit of cumin, rice vinegar, agave, and some big chunks of onion.  The pea greens cooked down like spinach.  I was worried that the curly bits might have a gross, choke-inspiring texture, but they were tender and not wormlike.  Which is nice.

If you can't find these at your farmer's market, they also sell them at many Asian grocery stores.  They're a nice, mild change from spinach or kale.  Give them a try, don't fear the tendrils.