A Birthday Dinner

With the pizza long gone, it was time to try the Grilled Seitan Caponata with Lemon Pilaf from The Sexy Vegan Cookbook.

Let me start by saying that I began this recipe on Tuesday so that it would be ready Thursday night. Brian Patton says upfront that the dish is "quite a production," and he wasn't kidding. This recipe requires 5 recipes from the book. I cheated just a little though. I had seitan cutlets from American Vegan Kitchen in my freezer, so I used those.

On Tuesday morning I took said cutlets from the freezer to thaw, since I'll need to marinate them for 1-4 hours. I also soaked the beans, salted the eggplant, and roasted the tomatoes. I made the Tomato Killer, which is the sauce that forms the base of the Caponata, cooked the beans, and made the Caponata that night. It took forever with all the chopping and simmering. I did this in part to save time Thursday, but also to make pizza for dinner, which I'll write about later.

On Wednesday, I marinated the seitan, and I made the dessert, which you'll hear more about later.

Finally, on Thursday, I grilled the seitan, made the pilaf, and put the whole thing together.

It's not necessary to begin so far in advance, but there is a lot of down time that makes this impractical without planning ahead. This is definitely a Sunday dinner scenario, where you have the whole day to roast, and soak, and salt, and wait. Also, I was working late on Thursday, so I knew I couldn't come home and try to put together a smashing dinner in record time. Even still, I put way more time into this meal than I have into any in a long time. So was it worth it?

I know that having to make a bunch of recipes from one book to make a single dish is a sticking point for a lot reviewers. I always grumble at first when I see that, but it's not so bad. In fact, making stuff from scratch is one of the real joys of cooking. You can exercise some serious quality control that way.

In this case, I have mixed feelings.

I do like the Caponata. It's all veggie and it you can't help but feeling you're getting a better nutritional experience than you might be with plain old marinara, which is the suggested substitute if you're feeling lazy. Plus, the texture really adds a lot in terms of making it feel like a full meal.

The Lemon Pilaf was bright and zesty. I liked the contrast with the heavier tomato flavor of the sauce. However, I wish I would have made this dish in the early spring or late summer. The veggies make more sense during those times, and the flavors just make more sense then.

Like I said earlier, the seitan was from another book, but I don't think that was a problem. I should have grilled it in my new George Foreman rather than laz-ing out and pan cooking it, so that it would have been crisper. I know that's user error, but one recipe complaint that I have is that it was too lemony. In the future, I'd reduce the amount of lemon juice by half in the marinade.

So in the end, this dish didn't knock my socks off as I'd hoped, but it was pretty good. I can't say that I'd make it this way again as it was so involved, but it might be interesting to play around in order to come up with a simpler, more flavorful version.

Pizza!

I've broken from the hold of 5 Spices, 50 Dishes and cracked open one of my other books! I chose Grilled Seitan Caponata with Lemon Pilaf from The Sexy Vegan Cookbook for a birthday dinner for my gentleman friend. Since the recipe for the Caponata yields more than I would need, I went ahead and took Brian L. Patton's advice and made some pizza.

One of the things I'm starting to think about this book is that nothing is easy. I would have to make 4 different recipes to make the Grilled Seitan Caponata with Lemon Pilaf (keeping in mind that I already had seitan made), and to make the simplest of his pizzas, I made 6! Now, I had already made the Tomato Killer, which was part of the Caponata, so maybe that was a bit of a freebie. But I still have a LOT left over for which I'm going to have to find a purpose.

With that made, I still had to make the dough, which was easy, but took a hella long time to rise. That's fine by me though, and it's one of the better doughs I've made at home. My major complaint is that Patton claims that the recipe will give you three 14-inch diameter thin crusts or two thick. As far as I can tell, that's not true. I used all of it to make a a thick crust pizza for The Mario.

I'm glad I did though. Once I rolled it out, and topped it with Caponata and Patton's Not-zzarella Sauce, it was so heavy, a thinner crust might have perished. The Not-zzarella Sauce is unlike any cheese-style sauce that I've ever made because it's a thin liquid. Additionally, I found it a bit bland right from the blender, so I added a bit of lemon and pepper. As with the Caponata, I had way more than I needed, even after loading up the pizza with more than the recipe mandated.

So after all of that, I got the pizza in the oven, and I still had to make the Parmesan Topping and the Balsamic Glaze. At this point, I was tired and indignant about making two more recipes with such a tremendous yield. The Parmesan Topping was easy though, and I just reduced the amounts. It is really good and will probably be my new go-to.

The Balsamic Glaze annoyed me though because even if I had two cups of Balsamic vinegar hanging around, I'm not going to make that much glaze. So I halved that one too, but I have to admit, it was unbelievably good, and I'm sure I'll pour it on all kinds of things.

Finally, after all of that, the pizza was out of the oven, and doused in the glaze. I skipped the arugula garnish because the grocery list for these recipes already broke the bank this week. I did add the basil leaves I wouldn't be using later in the week though. It didn't look like the pizza you'd get in a shop, which I expected, and it was not an elegant eating experience - if you're not comfortable licking your fingers, then you'll need a fork, because you're not going to want to leave anything behind.

This pizza was fantastic, and incredibly filling. Additionally, I felt like I got a lot more nutritional bang for my buck with this than I might have from a Johnny Rads or Tofurky pizza. I'll undoubtedly use his dough from now on, and maybe even the Not-zzarella Sauce, but I'll probably stick to more basic sauces and just add veggies unless I happen to have another odd gallon of Caponata lying around.