Monday-Seitan Piccata

The Candle 79 Cookbook is loaded with not only delicious recipes, but beautiful food.  This is the type of food that you serve special guests who you want to impress.  If you are a little shy about trying seitan, the recipes in this book will win you over.  The seitan recipes are wonderful.  I did not like seitan very much until I made seitan from scratch.

Making seitan from scratch is time-consuming, but definitely worth it.  I usually make mine over a weekend to have ready for a couple of weeks worth of meals.  In the fridge, seitan will last about a month or it can be frozen too.  Seitan steaks are so versatile, you can chop them, grind them or cut them into strips.

I made Seitan Piccata from this cookbook.  Seitan is fried until it is crispy and the sauce has capers and wine in it.  The sauce has a tangy taste from the wine and lemon juice.  The capers add a nice texture and the shallots add a nice taste.  As side dishes, I sautéed fresh baby spinach and I made risotto in the pressure cooker.  This was the first time that I used my new pressure cooker for something other than beans.  The risotto came out very nice.  And in the pressure cooker, you can make risotto in about 10 minutes!

Pressure Cooker Mushroom Risotto

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup onion, chopped

1/2 cup dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated in 2 1/2 cups water

2 1/2 cups stock ( I used the water that I soaked the dried mushrooms in)

1 cup arborio rice

1/2 cup white wine

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons Earth Balance

Heat oil in the pressure cooker.  Add onion and cook for a couple of minutes or until almost tender.  Chop mushrooms and add to the onions.  Cook an additional minute.  Add rice and saute for two more minutes.  Add stock and wine.   Close the lid to the pressure cooker and bring to pressure.  Cook for 6 minutes.  Once the lid can be removed, add pepper and Earth Balance.  Stir and serve.

Tagged as: Candle 79 Cookbook, mushrooms, risotto, seitan, spinach