halloween stuffed biscuits

Happy October!

This is my favorite time of the year, the weather is cool, the wind is blowing and the holidays are approaching.

Autumn and Spring as to die for!

It was a hike day today and I wanted to introduce the kids to October in fashion. I made this Jack-O-Lantern biscuit to honor the upcoming fest and stuffed it with a simple Boca crumble mixture. I just sauteed the crumbles with onions and garlic and added a little mustard and ketchup to give it some binding. It was truly simple, but that is probably why the kids loved it.

The biscuit is a very easy recipe and they were puffed and flaky and crispy. I rolled it out, cut 2 circles (about 4-inches in diameter) for each Jack-O-Lantern, put about 1/4 cup filling on the bottom one, cut the eyes and nose (don't forget the nose like I did!) and a mouth, placed it on the filling and sealed the edges. Cut some stems from scraps and bake the scraps too, for a snack.

To make the filling, saute a package of soy grounds with 1/2 cup of onion and 2 minced garlic. When the grounds are browned, add 1 tablespoon ketchup, 1 tablespoon yellow mustard and salt and pepper to taste.

Make the biscuit dough recipe below and cut the dough into 12 (4-inch diameter) circles. Make eyes, nose and mouth on 6 of them. Put about 1/2 cup of the filing on the other six circles, top with the cut-out circles, seal the edges and spray with a little oil or brush with a little milk.
Bake.

So successful!

Cost Breakdown:

flours: $1.50

Earth Balance, baking powder: $.50

almond milk: $1

Boca crumbles: $4

mustard, ketchup, onion, garlic: $1

Total to make 6 Stuffed Biscuits:

$8.00

braciole

Food Network Friday Challenge

Tami Noyes, author of American Vegan Kitchen, over at Vegan Appetite blog, challenged us to recreate Anne Burrell's Braciole. Braciole is an American-Italian dish of rolled beef that is stuffed and braised in tomato sauce.

I have seen many variations on this and each time that I do I think - this would be great vegan. Well, here was my chance to make it.

So the obvious question is - where's the beef? Or more to the point, what will replace the beef? While at first I thought a thin slice of seitan would be great, seitan does not bend or roll very easily. The solution of course, is to roll not seitan but gluten (which is raw seitan). I made a gluten using my Firm Seitan recipe. This worked beautifully and the dish turned out super delicious.

The stuffing was rustic bread soaked in rice milk, spinach, pine nuts, onion, garlic and three cheezes - Daiya, Follow Your Heart and Parma! .

The tomato sauce is a simple sauce of onion, garlic, tomatoes, and red wine. During the braising the sauce cooks down to a lovely, rich sauce. My cooking time was 2 hours on 325 degrees, but I think 300 would have been better since there was a slight seitan-y flavor. It was very slight and the tomato sauce covered it well, but a lower temp might help keep the aftertaste even less.

Everyone liked this! I also made a How-To Breakdown of the recipe, so take a gander. 

Cost Breakdown

seitan: $3

spinach, bread, pine nuts: $3

onion, garlic: $2

Daiya, Parma!, Follow Your Heart: $5

kale, orzo: $4

tomatoes: $3.50

Total to feed a family of 6:

$20.50

How-To Breakdown