Cooking with Seitan

Awe man! This recipe was delicious! Unfortunately trying to find seitan in Whole Foods was an experience in itself.
I decided to try this recipe because I wanted to find an other meat alternative. I had never heard of seitan (pronounced sEItan... not satan) but I wanted to try it out. But first I had to find it. Now it's not really popular so most people at Whole Foods looked at me a little strange when I asked them where I could find seitan. One guy abandoned me, probably because he thought I was crazy. Finally, a gentleman was able to help me and together we looked high and low for it. We started in the meat alternative section but had trouble finding it. He asked a coworker who said it might be in the frozen section. So we looked there and seitan wasn't in the freezer. Hee hee :) I had a grand time imagining myself looking for the devil in the freezer and meat alternative section. Finally it was in the meat alternative section but it's mixed in with the tofu so it's not very obvious. It's pricier (about $5 for 7.9oz) then tofu but really, that's not that much of an issue, just means I won't be cooking with it every day.
The recipe, Seitan 'meatballs' with winter tomato sauce, is a twist on spaghetti and meatballs. Wanting to stray away from spag, I made the 'meatballs' with steamed kale (still on my kale kick). It had enough sustenance and was very yummy. The 'meatballs' were quite salty. I don't know if this is due to the fact that the only seitan that Whole Foods had at the moment was ginger and garlic flavored and not original (like the recipe calls for). Or perhaps seitan is just a little saltier. Now don't get fooled by it's unappetizing look (it kind of looks like a very sick liver). It smells quite nice (earthy) and the finished product was delicious too!
I'm tempted to rename this recipe because seitan meatballs doesn't quite cut it. I don't like calling it a meatball cuz there's no meat (unless you want to call seitan wheat meat/gluten meat). Calling it Seitan balls doesn't work either. Perhaps Seitan pecan balls... Still. No. Anyways so here's the recipe :)

Seitan Meatless Meatballs

1 (16 oz) package seitan
1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup whole-wheat bread crumbs
1/4 cup chopped parsley (I used cilantro cuz I grabbed the wrong thing out of the fridge and only realized it once I chopped it all up... it the end it we all agreed that cilantro tastes better then parsley would)
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (use basil stems as well as leaves)
1/8 tsp dried oregano
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 tsb low-sodium soy sauce (or BRAGGs Liquid Aminos)
1 tsp egg replacer powder (I used 1 egg)

• Preheat oven to 400F. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray.
• Crumble seitan in food processor. Add pecans; pulse to blend.
• Transfer to bowl. Stir in breadcrumbs, herbs, garlic, 1 tbsp. olive oil, and soy sauce.
• Whisk egg replacer with 1/4 cup water until frothy (or just whisk 1 egg, no water); fold into seitan mixture.
• Shape mixture into 18 balls. Place on prepared baking sheet and brush with remaining 2 tbsp oil.
• Bake 20 minutes, turning once, or until crusty and lightly browned.

Some of the balls were a little crumbly so I ended up drizzling the oil on when I was supposed to turn them... I didn't turn them for fear they'd crumble and they turned out just fine :)