Roasted Chickpeas with Paprika

I recently returned to the U.S. from a conference in Budapest, and I brought with me some Hungarian paprika, which is one of the country's specialties. They make both hot and sweet paprika, and I bought the hot kind. I'd never cooked with it before, but it was quite delicious. You can get both hot and sweet paprika in the U.S., though you may have to do some searching to find the hot one.

I decided to try out my new paprika roast some chickpeas with it. The recipe is adapted from one by The Perfect Pantry* Here's my version:

2 c. dried chickpeas, soaked in water either overnight, or first thing in the morning (if you're making them for dinner). I much prefer dried chickpeas to canned ones. They have more flavor, and don't get mushy so easily. They also take up much less storage space in the kitchen.
1 1/2 - 2 c. cherry tomatoes, quartered.
6 cloves of garlic
3 tsp hot paprika
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp cumin seeds (though you could use just 3 tsp ground cumin if you wanted to)
olive oil
1 tsp coarse sea salt
black pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drain soaked chickpeas, and put them in the water and cover. Let them cook for about 30-40 minutes, until tender but not mushy. While the chickpeas are cooking, peel the garlic and quarter the tomatoes. Add the sea salt to the tomatoes, mix, and let them macerate. About 15 minutes before they are ready, preheat the oven to 425 degrees Farenheit.

Drain the chickpeas, and spread them out on a baking sheet. Add the tomatoes. Sprinkle the spices over everything, drizzle with olive oil, and then toss so that the spices evenly coat each chickpea. Bake about 15-25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serves about 6 as a main meal.

*http://www.theperfectpantry.com/2010/06/paprika-recipe-roasted-chickpeas-with-garlic-cumin-and-paprika.html

Salmon with Parseley and Garlic

I'm a little late in getting this one up, but thought I might as well do it anyway. This recipe, clearly, is not vegan. My brother came to visit me for a week, so I cooked salmon for him and my boyfriend. They both said that the blind director made a fine film.

Here we go:

Salmon--I have no idea how much I got. I think about four servings.
8-10 cloves garlic, peeled
one bunch parseley leaves (try to take as much of the stems off as possible)
olive oil
white wine (pinot grigio)

Put garlic cloves and parseley in the food processor. Drizzle with olive oil. Process until they make a fairly fine paste.
Heat some olive oil in a saute pan on medium. when it is hot, place salmon in the pan. Brown one side. Flip over. Put about 4 tbsp of the sauce (or however much you want) on top of the brown side of the fish and in the pan. When the other side is browned, flip it again and add some white wine to deglaze the pan and collect the flavors. Serve immediately.

Seitan with Sage and White Wine

Prepare Seitan as described in "Seitan for Italian Recipes".

6-8 cloves of fresh garlic
Lots of fresh sage!
Dry white wine (I use pinot grigio).

Heat a skillet at medium high with 3-4 tbsp of olive oil.
When hot, add garlic. When slightly brown, add seitan pieces.
Brown one side.
Flip.
Add fresh sage.
When second side is brown, add enough white wine to deglaze and keep about 1/4" of liquid in the pan.
Reduce liquid until it reaches desired consistency.
Move seitan to a plate. Pour sauce over it.
Serve immediately.

Seitan for Italian Recipes

I'm really starting to get these seitan recipes down. Here's the idea:

The instructions below makes seitan pieces ready for cooking the way chicken breasts are often done in Italian cooking.

You can then appropriate pretty much any Italian stovetop chicken recipe.

(You can double this recipe if you have a lot of people over. Feeds 5-6):
1 1/3 c. vital wheat gluten
2 vegan bouillon cubes
2 tbsp soy sauce.
all purpose flour.

In a small pot, heat about 4 cups of water and one bouillon cube until it dissolves. It's best to let this broth cool completely, but you can use it while warm, too.
Add soy sauce to the small pot.
Heat a large stock pot with one of the bouillon cubes.
Pour wheat gluten powder into a large bowl.
Add contents of small pot to the large bowl very slowly, stirring well to make sure the wheat gluten doesn't get lumpy.
Once the wheat gluten is saturated with liquid, stop pouring broth in and start kneading, about 5 minutes.
Stretch dough into a long baguette shape. Let rest for 5 minutes.
The water in the large pot should almost be boiling now.
Slice dough into pieces, about 1/2" to 3/4" thick. Stretch each slice as thinly as you can and drop it into the large pot.
Let simmer for one hour.
Drain pot and let seitan stand for 5 minutes to cool enough to handle.
In the meantime, prepare two plates, one with flour for coating, one for completed pieces.
Going one by one, press as much liquid out of each seitan piece as you can, then coat both sides well with flour.

Now the seitan pieces are ready to use in pretty much any Italian recipe that sautes them on the stovetop!