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By Root 897 0

depth of flavor, and a splash of lemon juice at the end brightens everything up. Serve with a hunk of good bread. Like the Portobello Pepper Steak Stew (page 247), this comes together right in your skillet. It requires a lid, but if you don’t have a large lid just use a cookie sheet to cover the pan.

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 cups seitan, sliced thinly

1 small onion, quartered and sliced thinly

½ teaspoon salt

3 cloves garlic, minced

Freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 bay leaves

1 cup good beer, preferably ale

1¼ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes (2 average-size), cut into

¾-inch chunks

½ pound carrots, sliced diagonally into pieces ½-inch thick

3½ cups broth

1 tablespoon tomato paste

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¼ pound green beans, ends trimmed, cut into inch-long pieces

(1 cup)

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat a large, heavy-bottomed (preferably cast-iron) skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté the seitan in 1 teaspoon of the oil for about 5 minutes, until browned. This is a good time to prep everything else. Remove the seitan from the pan and set aside.

In the same pan, sauté the onions and a pinch of the salt in the remaining oil until translucent, 4 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic, pepper, thyme, and bay leaves, and sauté for about a minute, until the garlic is fragrant.

Add the beer and remaining salt and turn up the heat to bring to a boil. The liquid should reduce in about 3 minutes.

Add the potatoes and carrots along with 2 cups of the vegetable broth. Cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the green beans and lower the heat to bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork tender. Mix in the tomato paste.

In a measuring cup, mix the flour into the remaining broth to dissolve into a slurry (see tip, page 248). Lower the heat a bit and add the slurry to the pan. Mix well and let thicken for a minute. Add the seitan back to the pan along with the lemon juice and let thicken further; in about 5 minutes it should be perfectly thick but still smooth. Taste for salt and seasonings, and serve!

Eggplant Provençal

SERVES 6 • ACTIVE TIME: 20 MINUTES • TOTAL TIME: 40 MINUTES

PER SERVING

(⅙ RECIPE):

Calories: 240

Calories from fat: 20

Total fat: 2.5 g

Saturated fat: 0 g

Trans fat: 0 g

Total carb: 44 g

Fiber: 10 g

Sugars: 8 g

Protein: 9 g

Cholesterol: 0 mg

Sodium: 750 mg

Vitamin A: 130%

Vitamin C: 50%

Calcium: 8%

Iron: 20%

Of all the styles of cooking, the one most foreign to me is French. I’ve heard that a vegan can eat extraordinarily well in France, and I’m not surprised, but if you thumb through a French cookbook you will mostly see recipes that require pounds of butter, pints of cream, and other unspeakable horrors. So I’d always shied away from it. But I recently got a cookbook of Provençal cooking, referring to the Provence area of France, and the recipes were instantly appealing. Olives, fennel, tomato... it’s a vegan’s dream! Swap out some of those meats for lentils and super meaty eggplant and you’ve got yourself a winner of a stew. Serve over rice or with a big hunk of bread.

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 small onion, sliced thinly

1 baseball-size fennel bulb, sliced thinly

3 cloves garlic, minced

A pinch of salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

1¼ pounds eggplant, cut into ¾-inch chunks

1¼ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into ¾-inch chunks

(2 average-size potatoes)

½ pound carrots, sliced diagonally into ½-inch-thick pieces

½ cup dried red lentils

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried marjoram

¾ cup dry red wine

2 cups vegetable broth

½ cup finely chopped kalamata olives

1 (6-ounce) can tomato sauce

Preheat a 4-quart pot over medium-high heat. Sauté the onion, fennel, and garlic in the oil with a pinch of salt, for about minutes. Use a little nonstick cooking spray or water if things are sticking.

Add the remaining salt, pepper, and bay leaves, and saute for about 30 seconds. Mix in the eggplant, potatoes, carrots, red lentils, thyme, and marjoram. Add the wine