Chinese New Year Eats!

Friday was Chinese New Year, and y'all know I celebrate every holiday I can. February is great for me because there are SO MANY HOLIDAYS (Imbolc, the SuperBowl, Valentine's, Chinese New Year, and Fat Tuesday, which is today!). 

Friday marked the beginning of the Year of the Metal Ox, which is said to be a year that's all about resilience and sticking it out. It's soft, slow, and passive, which seems accurate as we ride out the rest of this pandemic. It's considered to be a transitional period. By contrast, 2020 was the Year of the Metal Rat and was predicted to be dramatic and life-shifting, and boy was it ever!! 

To celebrate, I made General Tso's Seitan and Dragon Green Beans from The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. 

It'd been awhile since I'd made homemade seitan! I love seitan so much. Isa's recipe is a classic boiled seitan, which is then coated in flour and fried before coating in a savory-sweet-spicy sauce. Fried foods are great, but they're not great on my stomach, so I opted to bake the seitan instead. And it was perfect.

The green beans are sauteed with slivered almonds and a spicy sriracha-laced soy sauce. So good!

I also made a themed lunch that day. I had some leftover zucchini, eggplant, and mushrooms from another recipe, so I sauteed that in a little sesame oil and added some brown rice and tofu for a quick Tofu Fried Rice lunch.

Happy belated Chinese New Year! And Happy Fat Tuesday!