Korean Barbecue Seitan

A very brief post, written in advance, because I am currently in Upstate NY getting ready for our wedding! As you read this, we are probably getting our marriage license!

I spent a long time trying to find a vegan-friendly caterer for our wedding. I eventually found a few names, but our wedding is going to be so small that it wasn't worth caterers' time to 1.) make the trek out to Cooperstown and 2.) work with my allergies. We were turned down by a number of caterers. We didn't want to settle with crappy food, either, so we found ourselves at a loss for what to do.

Enter MY MOTHER! She'll be cooking all of the entrees and side dishes. She's a great cook and sooooo wonderful to do this for us. She and I talk at least three times a week, and every time we talk lately, she's been running recipes by me. "What about this dish?" and "How about this?" and "Do you really think one serving of seitan is 4 ounces?!" Over the past few weeks, she's been perfecting the recipe she's going to use for the wedding, which means my family might be tired of our wedding food before the wedding even happens! As you read this, she is probably chopping and stirring our food right now.

One dish she'll be making at the wedding is a "Korean Barbecue Seitan" recipe she found in a cookbook of hers. While she was describing it, to me, it sounded so good that I made it for dinner myself, shown here with kimchi and rice noodles.

I overcooked ours a little. Good thing my mom's doing the cooking for the wedding and not me!

The "barbecue" sauce is a marinade consisting of soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and molasses. I used low-sodium tamari, so I didn't notice as much, but Mom said using regular tamari was way too salty. She'll be using Bragg's Aminos instead for the wedding version, since they have much less sodium. But it's a very tasty recipe!

Without my mom to help, we'd've had to settle for cruddy food, most of which I'd be allergic to. But thanks to her, tomorrow we will all eat well!