We Have a Winner! And Some Hot Wangz ...

Let's cut to the chase and announce the granola contest winner before I start showing ya'll everything I ate today. Last week, I hosted a MixMyGranola $20 gift certificate giveaway, in which the lucky random winner gets a chance to personalize his or her own granola from MixMyGranola.com. You guys posted great comments about what you'd include in your mix if you won.

This morning, I used a random number generator to choose a number from the comments of participants. And that lucky ducky winner is ..... (drumroll, please) ...Melisser of The Urban Housewife (#5)! Congrats Melisser! I'll shoot you an email with further instructions!

Now, on to the foodiness. Last night's dinner (and today's lunch) featured these Seitan Hot Wangz, a recipe I'm working on for my cookbook:

I've made these before, but they were much better this time. I've tweaked my seitan recipe to make it more tender and less chewy. Also, I used smaller seitan chunks than usual because this was some leftover seitan that I'd originally made for a seitan beef stew.

On the side were the Green Beans with Shallots and Walnuts from Vegan Soul Kitchen:

I got these beans in a CSA share that I'm sharin' with my friend who is currently in Germany. I knew I didn't want plain old green beans, so I found this tasty recipe. The beans are lightly boiled and then tossed with roasted shallots, a tangy mustard vinegarette, and garnished with walnuts. I think this is my new favorite way to eat fresh green beans.

I also had some Jalepeno-Basil Watermelon Salad:

This recipe is also going in my cookbook. It's super simple though — 2 cups chopped watermelon, juice of one lime, 1 Tbsp. finely minced jalepeno, and six leaves of chopped fresh basil. Oh, and salt to taste. Yummy-nummy!

This will be my last post until at least Tuesday night. I'm headed to Asheville, North Carolina for Veganstock, a big ole' PPK camping trip that involves lots of communal cookin' and something called tater pigs. I'll share plenty of pictures when I return, of course!