Seitanic Jambalaya (with pink beans and eggplant)

Seitanic.

Flipping through Veganomicon looking for recipes to utilize the huge pot of small pink beans I'd cooked on Sunday, I found myself stopping on the recipe for Seitanic Jambalaya with Red and White Beans.  If you have an Amazon account, you can view the recipe online, but surely you have this cookbook or can request it from your library.  It's my go to vegan cookbook.  

Now, this is one I somehow  skipped as a recipe tester for the book and it was reaching out to me.  Obviously Mardi Gras recently passed and the internet's been buzzing about Cajun food, as does my younger sister Jenny on a regular basis.  I like heat but don't find myself cooking many Cajun-style dishes.  I've made gumbo once and cajun coated tofu

and potatoes a few times, but that's it.

I made a full version of the recipe and fed my friends during our weekly LOST viewing, which also included the premiere of ANTM and they seemed to enjoy it.  It makes a ton!  If I hadn't fed folks, I'd be eating this for a week!  I used an organic cajun spice blend, fresh thyme and found my first jambalaya stick-to-your-ribs-with-savoury-rice good.  Whatever that means, it was true.

I used Trader Joe's new organic long grain white rice, my soaked small pink beans instead of red and white, two green bell peppers, one stalk of celery, threw in some diced eggplant and because I'm a hater, subbed extra garlic and a bunch of onion powder for the onion.  I know, I know, I know, I'm ridiculous, but it's my kitchen.  I did find myself baking it an additional 15 or so minutes to let the rice fully cook.

For the seitanic contribution, I made two large baked seitan cutlets based on the Veganomicon recipe the night before the jambalaya cooking.  This is my go-to seitan recipe from the go-to vegan cookbook.  I can also see diced steamed sausages being great in this.  I also used vegan chicken-style buillion cubes  and added diced garlic, bay leaf, shallot, black pepper and crushed red pepper to my broth.  Of course it's easy to make your own Chicken-Style broth powder as well, like with Bryanna's recipe.

For more vegan New Orleans and Cajun style cooking, 

I encourage you to visit Kittee's site, Paku Paku.

Next up for my giant vat of pink beans - Brown Rice Spaghetti with Bean Balls and Homemade Marinara.  I quickly made a new batch of Walnut-Miso-'Parmesan' last night for sprinkling~