Pizza Toasties! – VeganMoFo Day 27

Today’s recipe, if you can call it that, is simple and straightforward, for a simple straightforward prompt – the TV Dinner! I mean, we don’t have a dining space so we eat on the sofa every day anyway, but sometimes you want something comforting, easy to eat, and tasty for watching your favourite show.

Enter the Pizza Toastie!

I’m not going to post an actual “recipe” for this, as it’ll depend a lot on what you use yourself – but I’ll describe how I made it.

I made a batch of my gooey cheese sauce – which is really delicious and works great as a melty cheese for sandwiches – and used that as the cheese filling. I used Asda’s free from red pesto as a sauce, and added chopped up sundried tomatoes as well. You could add different flavours if you like – grilled mushrooms, sausages, basil, fresh tomatoes. I pressed these in my panini grill for about five minutes, until nicely golden.

Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage (in a sandwich)! – Vegan MoFo Day 5

MoFo day 5 is all about sandwiches. Ok, I will admit that I don’t think I eat a ton of sandwiches. If I’m having bread, it’ll at most be an open-faced sandwich because, same amount of bread for twice the filling? Yes please! But then I got thinking, and, well, I like burgers and things like that, and I guess they’re technically sandwiches, right?

So here it is, this is my kind-of-burger-kind-of-sandwich sandwich. Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage Sandwich!

I recently got Vital Wheat Gluten for the first time and have been going mad making seitan! Using the gluten makes a lovely chewy, dense mock meat and you can flavour it with whatever you like. I based my recipe off Isa’s bean and gluten sausages but adapted the flavours to make it Tomato & Basil flavoured.

Making the sausages is super easy. You just mix all the ingredients in a bowl, shape into sausage shapes, wrap in foil, steam for 40 minutes and then unwrap, and there you have sausages! Fry them off to get crisp, or put them on a barbecue if you like!

I served mine in sundried tomato cobs (recipe coming soon) with rocket (also known as argula) and a balsamic red onion mix.

Tomato & Basil Seitan Sausage Sandwiches

• Servings: makes 8 sausages
• Print

Ingredients

For the Sausages (makes 8)
• 200g Vital Wheat Gluten
• 1 can cannellini beans, drained
• 3 heaped tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp Nutritional yeast
• 250ml cold vegetable stock

For the red onions

• 2 large red onions, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp oil

To serve

• Cobs/rolls
• Rocket/arugula

Directions

1. In a bowl, mash the beans until thoroughly mashed.
2. Add the rest of the sausage ingredients, and mix well until a dough is formed.
3. Split into 8 portions, and roll into sausage shapes.
4. Wrap each sausage securely in tin foil, leaving enough space to expand.
5. Steam for 40 minutes. You may need to do this in 2 batches is your steamer is not large enough.
6. Once the sausages are cooked, remove them from the foil, and fry in a pan until the outsides are crisp.
7. Meanwhile, make the onions. Heat the oil in a small saucepan, and fry the onions until they soften.
8. Add the balsamic vinegar and sugar to the onions, and cook 5-10 minutes.
9. Slice the sausages lengthways, and put in the cobs with the rocket, and a spoonful of onion mixture.
10. Serve and enjoy!