oh, good GRAVY! chickpea cutlets and mashed potatoes

tibo carves the seitan roast 

last thanksgiving, i made a seitanic roast that, while super tasty and enjoyed by the meatavores, is an involved project. i began wondering, this week, as the weather started to turn, is there an alternative for evenings when im craving something substantial but dont have three hours to roast a "roast"?  yes, virginia, there is.

turns out, there are oodles of chickpea cutlet recipes out there; most of them are adapted from Veganomicon

the original recipe calls for bread crumbs and soy sauce and lemon zest, but i ditched those things. i replaced the bread crumbs with oats, lemon zest with lemon pepper, and didnt replace the soy sauce at all.

i decided to be totally comforty and make mashed potatoes and gravy to accompany the cutlets. ive always loved gravy but, like my grandfather, never put the stuff on my potatoes. i am a potato purist. however, ive always been keen on slathering the other things on my plate.

i made some mushroom stock and prepped the taters.

then, i gathered everything else and put the oven on 190°/375°

i used:
1 cup chickpeas
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup gluten
½ cup oatmeal
¼ cup veggie (mmmushroom) stock
garlic
lemon pepper
parsley
thyme


i mashed the chickpeas and added in the oil (hurray for food processors!). separately, i combined the cooled stock and a few cloves of garlic. also separately, i put together the dry ingredients (gluten, oats, and seasoning). next, i put it all together and kneeded it until it was gluten-ey. what does that mean? well, these little strings form. you can see and feel the gluten doing its thing.

i divided the dough into 4 and made little palm shaped shapes out of each hunk. i oiled them and stuck 'em in the roasting pan for 20 minutes (while the potatoes were boiling). then i flipped them over and baked for another 10.

meanwhile.... gravy!


i chopped about 3 mushrooms and sautéed them with some butter. then i put them aside in a separate bowl. in the same pan, i made a roux with butter and flour and sloooooooowly added the stock. once i was happy with the consistency, i added thyme and the chopped mushrooms.

the potaters (skin on!) were mashed with a little milk and that was that.