vegan chicken n' waffles

Supposedly, chicken and waffles is a traditional Southern soul food dish. But I honestly never even heard of this strange combination until I was well into my 20's. Not that I necessarily come from a soul food background, but I most certainly come from a Southern cookin' background, and the two tend to go hand in hand. Regardless of where the concept came from, I have always wanted to try a vegan version of chicken and waffles.
There used to be a "vegan" restaurant in Atlanta that had chicken and waffles on their menu, but always claimed to be out of them when we would go. It's probably a good thing, because most everything at that place pretty much sucked, and I would have hated for my first chicken and waffle experience to have come from there.

So I made my own. And they kicked much ass. I highly recommend trying this out, even if the combo sounds strange to you.
For the chicken part, feel free to use your favorite chicken-style seitan if you like. I used the May Wah "chicken" nuggets, because they have the best flavor of any mock meat I've ever tried. They are seriously tasty. But I'm sure this dish would still suit you fine with another type of analog. I wanted to find a way to mingle the savory and the sweet together somehow, so I used crushed almonds in the chicken breading, and almond extract in the maple syrup. SO WONDERFUL.



Vegan Chicken N' Waffles
Serves 4

For the waffles:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups plain or vanilla almond milk
cooking spray

For the chicken:
Enough chicken-style seitan for four people, about 2 lbs. (cut into chunks)
2 cups plain almond milk
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 cup blanched almonds, crushed
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
Enough high-heat cooking oil to fry in, about 2 cups' worth

Preheat your waffle iron, and spray with cooking oil. Make waffle batter by sifting the dry ingredients together into a medium mixing bowl, then mixing in the wet ingredients. Once iron is preheated, pour one waffle worth of batter and start cooking. Continue to make waffles while you prepare the chicken stuff.
You will need two bowls. In one bowl pour the almond milk. In the second bowl, combine the flour, nutritional yeast, almonds, paprika, salt & pepper. preheat a deep skillet or deep fryer on medium-high heat. Oil needs to be at about 350F.
Begin by dipping seitan pieces in the milk, then into the flour mixture. Dip back in the milk, and once more into the flour mixture. Drop into hot oil and repeat with all of the seitan. Once golden brown all over, remove seitan from the oil, and set on a paper towel lined plate to drain.
How are the waffles coming? You should have several ready by now. Take one waffle and coat the top liberally with Earth Balance margarine. Top with several pieces of fried "chicken", and pour a heaping serving of warm maple syrup on top of it all. Repeat. Eat. Yum.

(The actual waffle batter recipe is taken directly from this Easy Pancake recipe. Our very favorite!)

fried things.

I've had a hankering for corn fritters lately. But rather than make my usual cornmeal ones, I decided to try a recipe from Ann Jackson's Cookin' Southern Vegetarian Style. But I didn't use Ann's fritter recipe, as they are more of my idea of pancakes. I used her corn oysters recipe instead. Now that's a fritter! Like I said, I usually make mine with cornmeal, but these called for flour. I'm trying really hard to use less of the deliciously evil white flour, so I subbed whole wheat pastry flour in these with no problems. Here are the little buggers frying up to a browned perfection:



We had them with a bowl of Vegetarian Chicken Noodle Simmer Soup. This was the best dinner we had all week, and the soup was from a bag mix! But I'm not ashamed. In fact, I would do it again, given the chance!




Here's old man Moe with a funny expression on his face:



And Miles preparing for a sneak attack from a tote:

pretty shirts and ugly waffles.

First, here's my new favorite shirt from shirt.woot.com. It's called Zombie Garden. I loves it.




Now, about those waffles. Poor little ugly things. We made these from this mix, and honestly I didn't expect them to be great. Luckily, I was wrong. They were actually quite tasty. Much tastier than they look, for sure. Right out of the bag, the mix consisted of rolled oats, whole flax seeds, and sunflower seeds. I blended the mix in a blender with some soymilk and a bit of vanilla, and put the iron to 'em. Healthier than our usual white flour waffles too, so that's a plus.



Mmm, breakfast for dinner is always a good time.

mom.

Happy Mother's Day, pretty lady. See ya Thursday.

like I need to spend more money on such things.

I know, I know. I've been gone for a while, and I'm sorry. My internet access has been lessened quite a bit due to the fact that we are down to a mere one computer at home. That's tough for me, who likes to obsessively check my blog reader, and for Ken, who likes to obsessively check the store's back end. But it's better this way, because we have work to do around here. We're using our tax relief money for some house fixin', starting with the office. Patching, painting, and the ripping up of old nasty carpet has commenced.
Of course right after we purchased the supplies for the house, my car acquired a flat tire. Which led to spending money on four new tires, an alignment, and an oil change. Bah. "When it rains, it pours".
Sometimes Ken and I talk to each other completely in cliches, just to be funny. it usually starts off with, "Don't take any wooden nickels", then goes to, "A penny saved is a penny earned", or "six in one hand, a half a dozen in the other". And Ken's personal favorite, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity". This tends to end with a random quote from the movie Slingblade, "They turned me loose from the nervous hospital" or some such.
....where was I?
Oh, yeah. Money. We don't have much of it. I accept this fact, because we have awesome jobs that we love, which makes being broke totally worth it. But I just found out that Tom Waits is finishing off his summer tour in Atlanta! And I can't afford a ticket! But I will find a way, damnit. I will find a way. Check out the best press conference ever:



I haven't been cooking much this week, but I have been lucky enough to receive some really thoughtful food related gifts! First, Laura brought me a package of ready-made Mole sauce, and on the very same day I received a care package from Celine containing some exotic dried pretties from Trader Joe's: Dried dragonfruit (tastes nothing like I expected, almost savory...), dried hibiscus flowers (they taste as pretty as they look, and they're begging to be put atop a baked good), and some sweet and spicy tamarind. Oh, and some green tea! What a thoughtful package. Here's a pic of my gifties, along with a pack of Cosmos flower seeds my dad and his wife gave me:



A close up the pretty, jellyfish-like hibiscus flower:


What did I do to deserve such kindness? :)

My dad was also kind enough to give us his old elliptical machine last week. I've been wanting an exercise machine in the house, so it was really nice of him. However, he and his wife smoke in their house, so the machine smells like smoke and ass. I've washed it down completely, but the smell seems to be lingering in the spongy handles and mat. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get this thing less smelly? My basement currently smells like a bar. Blech.
But it was really nice of him, don't get me wrong. I'm looking forward to using it once it airs out.

More food soon, I promise.

it's good to stretch after a workout.

Miles was stretching with Ken after his run a few mornings ago. This isn't the first time he's done this, either. He's so damn cute. Check out his stretched out little toes! (Miles, not Ken.)

Celine tagged me for a quick 6 word description of myself. To that, I say:

high-strung
sensitive
hypochondriac
speed-reader
nervous
compassionate

Anyone else? Let's say, Laura, Christy, and Harriet.

the joy of various kitchen accoutrements.

For the first time in forever, Ken and I actually purchased something for ourselves! We got a shiny new wok.



And a new monkey head potholder!



Man, I love monkeys. And woks. And bundt cakes.



This is the Lower-Fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake from Veganomicon. I made a substitution that is probably pretty major for this cake, but it still turned out fabulous. The recipe calls for over a cup of strongly brewed coffee, and that didn't make it into mine. I don't care for coffee flavor, and Ken and I don't drink the stuff, so we never have any in the house. Rather, I just used vanilla soymilk, melted some dark chocolate chips in it, and used some additional coca powder. All and all, a very moist and delicious cake! And I got to use a bundt pan that I scored at the thrift store a while back for some small change.

On a completely unrelated note, why do I want this so badly?