Seitan Bourguignon

~2 oz veggie bacon, diced
3 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 recipe of PPK seitan (or about 2 packages), cut into large chunks

10 baby carrots, sliced in half diagonally

5 pearl onions, sliced

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup of full-bodied red wine (I used Pinot Noir)

leftover seitan simmering broth or 2 cups of veggie broth

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 sprig of thyme

bay leaf

18 pearl onions, braised in broth (recipe follows)

1/2 pound quartered fresh mushrooms sautéed in butter (recipe follows)

chopped parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sauté the bacon in 1 tbsp oil over moderate heat for a few minutes. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Add a few more drops of oil and sauté the seitan chunks until slightly browned on all sides. Remove and set aside. Add some more oil if necessary and brown the carrots, onions, and celery. Combine the seitan, bacon, and veggies in a casserole dish and sprinkle them with the flour. Toss it to coat everything with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the seitan and return to oven for 4 minutes more. Remove casserole, and turn oven down to 250-300 degrees. Transfer everything to a pot (or use the casserole if it's stovetop safe) and stir in the wine and enough broth to almost cover the seitan and veggies. Add the tomato paste and herbs. Bring to simmer on top of the stove. Then put it back in the casserole, cover it, and set in lower third of preheated oven. Let it simmer for an hour or until ready to serve.

While the seitan is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms. Set them aside until needed.

Before serving the seitan, add the cooked mushrooms and onions to the casserole and put it back in the oven, uncovered, until it starts to simmer again. Garnish with the parsey and serve with mashed potatoes.

Braised Onions:
18 baby onions

1½ tablespoons butter

1 ½ tablespoons oil

½ cup of broth

1 sprig of thyme

1 bay leaf

When the butter and oil are hot, add the onions and sauté over moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling the onions so they brown evenly. Add the herbs and broth, cover and let them simmer for about 30 minutes until the liquid has evaporated.

Sauteed Mushrooms:
2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon oil

½ pound fresh mushrooms, quartered

Heat the butter and oil. When it's hot, add the mushrooms. Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring often until the liquid evaporates and they start to brown.

Adapted from Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon

Bagels, Take One

It's probably a bad idea to replace all-purpose flour with whole wheat, but it worked. Dunno what the hell bread flour is, but I had some leftover vital wheat gluten from (finally) making my own (absolutely delicious) seitan, and I heard adding a little bit of wheat gluten to the dough makes it more like bread flour, so that's in there too.