Seitan loaf

Okay- I do not have a picture of this because I cut it up and put it in my St. Paddy's Day feast before I had a chance to take a picture. Use your imagination!

Seitan is basically wheat gluten flour. According to wikipedia, "It is made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch dissolves, leaving insoluble gluten as an elastic mass which is then cooked before being eaten”. Whatever that means. Anyways, it can be cooked in different ways to make different flavors and textures. I've made seitan a couple different ways, and each way is good for different applications. Since I will be using seitan in my St. Paddy's Day corn beef and cabbage, this type of seitan is best.

• 1.5 c. vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 c. nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1-2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I'm kind of a wuss- you can add more if you want)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
  
• 3/4 c. cold water
• 4 T. tomato paste
• 1 T. ketchup
• 2 T. olive oil
  
• 2 T. vegetarian Worcestershire sauce (soy sauce would probably work too if you can't find Worcestershire sauce without anchovies- yuck.)
• 1-3 cloves garlic, crushed well

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
   
2. Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl- mix
3. Mix all wet ingredients in a different bowl
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Knead for a couple minutes (be careful what you knead on- the spices make this red and it may stain your counter... or at least it did mine...)
5. Form the dough into a loaf. Wrap the loaf in aluminum foil- twist the ends so it looks like a birthday present!- and bake for 90 minutes
6. Once it's cool, take it out and do with it what you will.