Third Time's a Charm

Remember my twice-failed Dijon-Pecan Seitan recipe? I had a vision of creating a pecan-encrusted, dijon-flavored faux meat for my cookbook a few months ago, but I kept getting it all wrong. First, it started as a fried Dijon-Pecan Tofu, but the tofu texture was too light for the heavy pecan topping. Then, I used the pecan and mustard breading on seitan, but the wheat meat soaked up too much grease in the frying process.

So I decided to change the breading up a bit and bake the stuff. Now I give you Dijon-Pecan Seitan with a Maple-Butter Glaze:

By golly, I've finally done it. This variation is definiately a keeper. The seitan is breaded in a dijon-pecan batter, baked, and then rolled in a maple-soy margarine glaze. It has the sweetness of a honey mustard with the delightful crunch of toasted pecans.

I served the seitan with Orange-Ginger Beets from The Complete Vegan Kitchen:

I can't believe I used to hate beets! I mean, as recently as a few months ago. Beets have been the final frontier for me. After I went vegan, I learned to like every vegetable I used to hate in my lacto-ovo days ... except beets. They always tasted like dirt. Ick! But apparently, you just gotta know how to cook 'em. Now I love them roasted, in borscht, or boiled and seasoned using the above recipe which accents beets' earthy flavors with fresh ginger and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Here's the whole plate. I also opened a jar of my Granny's home-canned green beans: