Just Like Moms Chicken Soup
1 container chicken-style seitan
1 box vegan chicken-free broth (Imagine foods is best) **Make sure this is a Chicken style--not veggie--broth, or the soup will taste wrong
2 stalks celery
2-3 medium to large carrots
orzo or other pastina (as much as you like/want - about 3/4 cup uncooked)
1 clove garlic
small amount of white onion
water as needed
salt, pepper, parsley, and other seasonings (as desired) to taste
olive oil
In a large pot, use a small amount of olive oil to brown the seitan (conserve the liquid and save for later) with the garlic and oil. Seitan should be slightly brown on at least one side and most, if not all, of the liquid should have evaporated off and out of it.
Pour into the pot the seitan liquid and the chicken-free broth. Stir and bring to boil.
Add the Orzo to the mixture and stir. Chop the two celery stalks into half moons (along the radius) and add to mixture. Chop the carrots into either half-moons or rings, depending on the size of the carrot. Add the carrots to the mixture.
Add salt, pepper, parsley and any other seasonings you desire to the broth. Allow to boil and cover.
Allow the mixture to boil return it to a simmer. Cover, checking and stirring occasionally. If liquid decreases, add water until the broth is the way you like it. Continue to season if necessary.
Allow to simmer for about 20 - 30 minutes, or until carrots, celery and orzo are tender, but not mushy, and all seasonings have blended and mellowed. Serve with warm vegan bread and feel better.
SO HOW'D IT GO?
This was good at first,
But it did something odd in the fridge as leftovers; the broth sort of condensed and gave it a weird texture.
Next time, I'd try adding some nutritional yeast and using half veggie broth and half no-chicken broth.
Also, the seitan tasted like tofurkey. :3.
I should have cut that up smaller, but I was half sick already when I made it, so I wasn't really thinking about how small I should cut the seitan :3 .
This was pretty good, but I couldn't eat the leftovers because of the wonky texture.
Tinkerin' time!
Haha :3
This was pretty satisfying. I used my own seitan from the seitan cutlet recipe in veganomicon (only I baked the cutlets in unchicken stock rather than vege stock). I also added corn to the recipe. I used alphabet pasta 'cause that is all we had. It was good - my only complaint is that the seitan was a bit rubbery. I think the canned seitan from the asian shop (if I can find it!) might be a good addition. Thanks!
This came out yummy but I had to make two small changes. One, I've never found packaged seitan in a store before. I've made seitan a couple of times but I wasn't about to spend another hour to make seitan so I used tofu. Two, the un-chicken broth I bought was disappointingly bland. I used Imagine brand and I felt it had very little flavor. So I added a teaspoon of my vegetarian chicken Better Than Bouillon paste and it really added a lot more flavor. I added the carrots and celery and pastina macaroni. It's yumm yummy!
This was amazing! Thank you so much for submitting this recipe! :) I doubled the recipe, though next time I won't double the orzo entirely. I used a whole box of veggie chicken style bullion cubes since I knew a lot of the water would evaporate and I'd have to add more. I also used canned mock chicken seitan that I found at Grand Mart (Asian market). It tastes even better the day after! Mmmmmm 5 stars! :D
This turned out really good. In the past I've used tofu and the veggie broth but I think using seitan and the "chicken" broth really did the trick. Thanks.