Seasoned Crispy Seitan and Veggie Burritos with Black Bean Salsa

So yesterday, Brett went to the grocery store for Newman O’s, as he is obsessed, and since he was making the trip, I thought I would have him pick up some other things (sugar, flours, spices, extracts, veggie broth, soy and rice milk, agave, etc.) since he didn’t have a big list, and we generally have a list such that we can’t pick up much in the way of extras (since we walk home with our grub), so this was a good excuse to stock up on some stuff. Anyways, while he was there yesterday he happened upon what claimed to be the only organic sugar grown in the United States (it’s grown in southern Florida). Now I have to be completely honest, I didn’t know it was possible to grow sugar in the United States (and I graduated from college!), except maybe in Hawaii, which I don’t really count as the US in terms of ‘food miles’ since it’s not contiguous.

This is pretty exciting since I try to buy stuff from as locally as possible and keep my imported products to things like coffee, tea, chocolate, etc. I’m happy he found it and it is even a reasonable price. Maybe it is sad that I was so excited about this, but the baker and the environmentalist in me were equally stoked.

But anyways, last night I started to make a slightly modified version of Vegetarian Times’ Tempeh-Chili Burritos by switching out the tempeh for seitan and leaving the cilantro out of the Black Bean Salsa. As I was making the salsa, I decided I didn’t think it had enough flavor, so I modified that. Then when it came to the burrito itself, I noticed that the directions advised one to blend the tempeh (in my case it would have been seitan) and mushrooms together in a food processor and turn it into some sort of paste. Now I am OK doing things like this to beans or something, but pureed seitan and mushrooms just didn’t sound very good to me. So by this time, I decided to go my own way with this recipe as I had some veggies and spices I wanted to add as well.

So what follows is my take on what these burritos should have been like. You might notice that for a lot of ingredients such as spices and veggies, I don’t put measurements on many recipes (I will on recipes where proportions are important to the dish turning out), this is because everyone has their own tastes, these are the things that I put in this recipe, you might want to add more or less than I did, or change something else about it, so expect most of my recipes to be like this.

This recipes serves 2.

Black Bean Salsa

1-2 cups of cooked black beans
1/2 a pared and diced cucumber
canned fire roasted tomatoes, drained
1 avocado, diced
fresh lime juice (to taste)
cumin (to taste)
salt (to taste)

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until serving.

Seasoned Crispy Seitan and Veggie Burritos
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
mushrooms, sliced (I used lots)
yellow bell pepper, diced (any color bell pepper would do)
onions, diced
jalapeno, diced
1/2 a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies, drained
fresh lime juice
chili powder
cumin
cayenne pepper (optional)
oregano
salt
olive oil
1/2 package of seitan, sliced into strips
1-2 tsp. egg replacer (I use Ener-G)
2-3 tbs. corn starch

tortillas
tofu sour cream

In a medium to large skillet, heat about a quarter of a cup of water. Once heated add the mushrooms, bell pepper, onion, and jalapeno to the skillet. Cook until the veggies begin to soften, add the garlic – you may need to add more water along the way. Cook a few more minutes, and then add the drained diced tomatoes with green chilies.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine seitan strips and egg replacer. Toss and let sit for a minute.

Add olive oil to a medium skillet and warm over medium heat.

In another small bowl, combine corn starch and spices (except the lime) and toss seitan in it.

Add the coated seitan to the skillet with olive oil in it, and fry until golden brown, about 10 minutes or so.

While the seitan is cooking, add a bit of the spices to the veggies and squeeze the juice of about half a lime over them. Set them aside.

When seitan is finished, layer it and the cooked veggies in a warmed tortilla. Top with Black Bean Salsa, and of course, tofu sour cream.

The only thing I might do differently next time is heat the Black Bean Salsa a little and put it directly into the burrito as I ended up with what was essentially a burrito on top of a burrito. Just stuffing it all into a tortilla would simplify it a bit.

‘Til next time!