Yesterday was Memorial Day, the unofficial start to summer here in the US.  We hope you all had a good holiday weekend (if you had the day off).  One of the joys of summer is the ability to grill your food.  Of course, living in southern California we can pretty much grill year round, but we tend to grill a lot more over the summer than we do in the winter.

If you're looking for some vegan recipes to try out on your grill, Amy over at VegCooking (PETAs cooking blog), has a whole bunch of great recipes.  Our favorite is the Grilled Peaches ala Mode.  Generally, we skip the ice cream and use plums instead of peaches.   But this is yum!

And just in case your family or friends give you a little grief over the idea of vegan grilling, you may want to tell them about the five worst foods to grill.  Happy Summer!

Seitan Scallopini with Lemon Caper Sauce

Jane felt like cooking today, and there's been one recipe she's been meaning to try, but it's not a weekenight recipe.  By that I mean, it's involved and takes some time.  She broke out the big guns today!  The Scaloppini recipe comes from Susan, over at Fat Free Vegan.   The only change Jane made was that she swapped out the green olives and used capers instead.

I wasn't sure what to expect.  The cutlets looked reminiscent of chicken or veal cutlets.  THEY WERE FANTASTIC!  Jane was hoping the recipe wouldn't pan out, because it was a lot of work.  But after the first bite I knew I'd want this meal again.  I'm not sure, but I suspect, a meat eater wouldn't know it wasn't meat.  But then, I haven't had any meat in almost two years, so I may not be the best judge of that.  Jane's promised to make this dish again, and for company so we can test out my theory, but I don't suspect it will be any time soon.

Jane mentioned that she steamed the seitan (rather than wrapping it in foil), which was a little awkward, but the texture was worth it!  Next to Shojin's, this is the best seitan we've had to date!

I've written about my love for Shojin restaurant a few times already.  I'm truly sorry to keep talking about their amazing cuisine, as many of you don't live in the Los Angeles area and won't get the opportunity to eat there.  It is, without a doubt, the best vegan restaurant we have ever eaten at.

One of the dishes they make, which is a "must" if you go there, is the Pan-Fried BBQ Seitan.  The seitan is thinly sliced and has a really wonderful texture.  We thought it's reminiscent of eating meat.  We haven't been able to convince any of our omni's to come with us yet, so we'll have to weigh in on that in another post.

Anyway, Jane thought it might be fun to try and pan-fry her own seitan, so that's what we had for dinner tonight.  It was good, but NOT as good as Shojin's. The texture was completely different. This was much closer to bread than steak.

She started with Susan's recipe for Seitan Baked in Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce, but didn't use the sauce.  After baking the seitan she sliced most and cubed some.  That was an experiment to see if there would be a difference.  There was, the slices worked much better.  It made for a good dinner, and I've asked Jane to prepare that again, but we both agree... Shojin does it better.   Our dinner tonight consisted of the pan fried seitan, corn on the cob and green beans from the farmer's market, tomatoes from our garden, and a large green salad.  It was delicious, if slightly less healthy than what we usually eat.

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I think I'm in love. Okay, I'm in love with Lane, but you all know that already. He's my husband after all. Today I'm going to talk about my "new" love. Quinoa. It's not that I haven't had it before, I have. And I've enjoyed it in its plain iterations. But lately, I've been "playing" with it in a variety of different ways. Before this latest heat wave, I'd been making a few variations on quinoa for breakfast, I keep meaning to make it ahead of time and try it cold, but that hasn't happened yet. Just Friday night, I made a Quinoa salad for dinner based on Susan's recipe over at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

Normally I try to follow a recipe exactly as written the first time I'm making it. Especially when it's something new. But it was hot, and I was tired and I didn't have all the ingredients on hand. So, I winged it a bit. I had the basic ingredients for the dressing -- I subbed lemon juice for lime, and mandarin orange juice (from the can of mandarin oranges) for orange juice. But everything else remained the same. The added ingredients were another story however.

Typically we either eat out on Friday's or we have some kind of mish mash thrown together dinner with whatever produce is left over from the week. (Saturday morning we religiously go to our local farmers market.) I had the corn, but no peppers (they never make it a whole week). So, instead of peppers I threw in steamed asparagus. That was kind of boring though and I had no other fresh produce on hand. To spice things up, I added mandarin orange slices, artichoke hearts, and some sun dried tomatoes. I'll probably skip the sun dried tomatoes next time, but this dish is a winner. And since quinoa has a really high protein content, it's one of those things I'll be making more of an effort to incorporate into our diet. Maybe I'll make it again tomorrow...

-- Cheers, Jane