Vegan with a Vengeance

syrup can be subbed with sugar. If you have a serrano chile pepper you can use that instead of or in addition to cayenne. This dish is pretty spicy as is, so taste the sauce before deciding that you want more heat.
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    FOR THE MARINADE:
    Â½ large white onion, coarsely chopped
    2 cloves garlic, crushed
    1½ tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped
    3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
    3 tablespoons soy sauce
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
    1 tablespoon dried thyme
    1 teaspoon ground allspice
    Â¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
    Â¼ teaspoon ground cayenne
    1 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
    FOR THE SEITAN:
    2 cups seitan, cut into thick strips
    2 teaspoons olive oil
    1 onion, thickly sliced (about 1 cup)
    1 green bell pepper, seeded and thickly sliced
    Prepare the marinade by pureeing all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor until relatively smooth. There will be some chunkiness but that’s okay. Place the seitan in a shallow bowl and pour that marinade over it. Mix to coat. Cover and let marinate for an hour.
    In a large skillet, sauté the onions and peppers in olive oil over medium-high heat
for 5 to 7 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Remove the seitan from the marinade and reserve the liquid. Sauté for 10 minutes, until the seitan has browned to your liking. Add the remaining marinade and cook for about 2 minutes to heat the sauce through.
    Serve with Coconut Rice (page 109), sautéed greens, and baked sweet potatoes or roasted autumn vegetables; ladle the extra sauce over each serving.

    Veganism on the Internet
    T he Web can be a big scary place. A Google search for “vegan” will give you roughly three million results. If you don’t already have a comfortable vegetarian home online, or like my mom, you aren’t Web savvy, here are a few places I think you will enjoy.
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    Communities
    Veganporn.com is the creation of Toronto-based vegan Herman Thrust. The first thing you notice when you go there is the surprising absence of porn, but he got your attention, right? This is a great site to keep up to date on current events—from genetic engineering to cat hunting in Wisconsin, Veganporn has got it covered. Members get their own journals in which to post their musings and Herman pulls from these journals, adding his commentary to make an informative and insightful and often humorous blog on the home page.
    Vegpeople.com is such a great community. I don’t know how they did it but it’s full of intelligent, articulate, and well-informed people. I highly recommend it for the newbies in need of vegan support. Sections run the gamut from vegan fitness to book reviews, plus a section just for teens.
    Veggieboards.com is probably the largest vegetarian message board on the Web. Users discuss the usual veggie-related topics, but it’s a great place to go to while away the hours discussing things like TV, music, and film with other veggies. The boards can get a bit juvenile at times, but there’s always a good conversation going on.
    Livejournal has a number of vegetarian communities you can join once you become a member. It works like this: you choose a username (I don’t think that vegslut is taken) and your own journal space to post all the fascinating aspects of your life: what you ate that morning, the ridiculous thing a co-worker said, why you would rather be attacked by orcas than by cenobites, you know, just whatever is on your mind. Once you have signed up (it’s free, but a paid account gives you more customizable features) you can join other communities and make online friends. Some of my favorite vegetarian communities are Vegancooking, where (surprise! surprise!) you can get info on all things vegan and food. It’s especially helpful if you need advice on egg replacers or want to
know the easiest way to slice a mango. Veganfoodpics is a great place to post pictures of your dinner and have people care. Cheapvegan is a community for the zine of the same name where you can get helpful cooking hints for the budget-minded.
    Blogs
    If you don’t already know, blog is short for “Web log.” Cute, huh? There are millions of them and they can be fly-by-night. It’s hard to sort the good from the bad, but here are a few that I check regularly.
    Vegblog.org is Ryan MacMichael’s account of his vegan journey. Well, it’s not all so dramatic as that. Follow Ryan as he tackles recipes,