Why has Buffalo Wild Wings become a mass chain of resturaunts throughout the country and is always crowded?? Because people love Buffalo Wings, most importantly Buffalo Sauce. The mixture of hot with that coooool blue cheese or ranch dressing dance a sweet tango on the tongue. So what do the non chicken or even non fast food chain members do?? Sure we can order buffalo wings, or buffalo seitan at really any resturant/pub (buffalo seitan is the latest rage throughout the philly area for vegan items) but unfortunately I can't drop 10-15 bones every time I get that h0t/cool hankering. So, here it is, a magical team of hot thick buffalo sauced items with cool basil aioli to calm my craves. On the roster we have... Banging Buffalo Almond Dip, Buffalo Burgers, and of coarse Buffalo Wings. As always, Please Enjoy.
Almond Buffalo Dip
Craving buffalo but not in the mood to boil seitan for hours or prepare burgers... this works as an awesome dip that requires no cooling agent...just some chips!
-1 cup soaked ground almonds
-1/4 cup ground cashews
-1 tbsp. lemon juice
-dash of salt
-1/2 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce
-2 cloves of garlic
Throw into a food processor and SHAM-WOW!! You've got it!
Buffalo Sauce
All right, this is where the magic happens. This is the sauce you want to use to baste your burgers and slother your seitan.
-1/2 can crushed Tomatoes (roughly 14 oz.)
-1/2 cup Earth Balance
-1 cup Franks
-2 tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
-4 tsp. Cayenne (I end up using more, but I enjoy my wings very spicy!!)
-4 tbsp. brown sugar
-1/4 cup of flour
-dash (or dashes) or your favorite chili/hot sauce (Marie Sharps extra habenaro, my personal choice, thank you Rus Meyers)
-dash of red pepper flakes
In a sauce pan melt the butter and add the crushed tomotoes, franks, acv, cayenne, brown sugar and stir on medium heat until it starts bubbling. Slowly add in 1/4 cup of flour and mix well until it dissolves and thickens up your sauce. Then mix in the rest of ingredients, hot sauce and red pepper flakes until your happy with the spice level. Cook for a couple minutes on medium heat constantly stirring. Take off heat and drape it over your desired buffalo likings... (I think tonight I'm going to try buffalo pizza...)
To use with Burgers - preheat over 400
John bought these really weird fake meat squares at the asian market that I was sick of looking at. So these burgers are made out of those, but if you don't feel like trying fake frozen meat at your local asian market, I would just go ahead and use tofu.
-8 squares "fake meat" (I'll ask john and get back to you later on what they actually are)
-2 slices of bread
-2 tbsp. nutrional yeast
-1 tbsp. olive oil
-1/2 of a lemon, juiced
-2 cloves o' garlic
-1/8 tsp. coriander
-1/8 tsp. salt
Put all ingredients into a food processor and wait until they're nice and mushy! Then form them into patties, place on baking sheet, and bake in oven on 400 for about 5 minutes, take them out and slather on the sauce and bake for another 15 minutes, flip them, slather, and repeat! Garnish with Basil Aioli (recipe below) and any other desired burger fixings.
Wings
For faux chicken buffalo wings its soooo easy you won't stop making them (or at least I haven't for the past 2 days...). I used Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's
Simple Seitan recipe from their book
Veganomicon.
Simple Seitan
-1 cup vital wheat gluten flour
-3 tbsp. nutrional yeast
-1/2 cup cold vegetable broth
-1/4 cup soy sauce
-1 tbsp. olive oil
-2 cloves garlic (which my garlic loving self hasn't been putting in... )
Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, wet in a small one. Combine the two and stir with a wooden spoon until they are mixed and its clumpy. Start kneading the dough for about 3 mintues or until it becomes elastic. At this point in time, I go ahead and seperate the dough into little tiny "wing" sized pieces.
In a large stock pot bring about 8 cups of water (and if you want you can do 1/2 h20, 1/2 veggie broth with a little soy sauce, but i don't go through that trouble since I'm already coating them in sauce, they're more than flavorful) to a boil with your little seitan wings in it. Right when it starts boiling you want to turn it down to a simmer and let sit for about 45-1 hr. with the lid partially on to let steam out. Drain and let sit for a couple of minutes. Throw them into a big bowl and sprinkle about a tbsp. of flour over them and toss, then drench them with sauce, mixing them around so the entire surface area is covered. Put them in a 400 degree preheated oven on baking sheets lined with tin foil for about 10-15 minutes.
Serve with the Basil/Arugula Aoili.
Basil / Arugula Cooling Dip
This works. It totally works as the partner in crime with the hot buffalo sauce. Now, last night I made it with Arugula and the other night I made it with Basil, choose your poison.
-2 handfuls arugula/basil
-3 tbsp. olive oil
-1/2 cup walnuts
-1/3 cup almonds
-1 tbsp. sunflower seeds
-3 tbsp. veganaise
-Juice from 1 lemon
-3 gloves garlic
-dash of salt
Yes, as with a lot of the recipes I post on this, put into a food processor, combine until smooth and creamy and watch this amazing duo start popping up in your dreams.
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