Bowl of Red. Photo by mollyjade. Licensed under creative commons
The weather finally cooled off here in Texas, and, like a well-trained cook, I immediately started thinking about fall weather food. For me, that means food cooked in a soup pot—especially chili. I’ve been dreaming about a new recipe for the Lone Star Vegetarian Chili Cook-off, and tonight I tried it out.
I’m still firmly in the no-beans chili camp, but I wanted to try something other than bulgur this year. I’ve considered seitan before, but it’s cost prohibitive. In order to make sure that everything is vegan, you have to do all the cooking at the cook-off. That means, if you want to use seitan, you either make it there (and there’s not really enough time for that) or you buy a lot of pre-made seitan. And five gallons of seitan adds up.
But a recipe in Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food gave me hope. Alicia’s recipe for Wait-for-You Stew cooks the seitan right in the stew. Cheap and time efficient. I started with her measurements for gluten and liquid, and then changed everything else. It came out pretty well. The texture is perfect, and the broth was just right. But I need to work on the seasoning in the seitan a little.
Come by the Chili Cook-off in November to try out the final version!
I might be in the “lots o’ beans chili” camp, but that dish is still making my tummy growl! Yum!
thanks!
I can’t believe you are changing the recipe right after I finally tried the old one! I guess crumbled soy curls would be too expensive too?
For a beanless chili yeah. Some people do cook with seitan or crumbles, but that’s maybe 10% of their ingredients.
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YUM! It sure is chili weather here…
I hope I get to try it and meet you in person at the chili cook off! Since I’ll be in Austin, can you recommend a couple of restaurants I must try?
Will you be with Vegetarian Society of El Paso? I’ll be at the Texas VegFest booth. I’m excited to meet you!
Near the chili cookoff in Round Rock, I’d try Taste of Ethiopia or ZPizza. In Austin, I’d try Bouldin Creek, especially the tofu scramble or the wanna BLT, Wheatsville for the popcorn tofu po’boy, or the chimichurri seitan wrap at Conscious Cravings (a food cart).