Day eight in Vegan in 30 Days says to eliminate poultry. I was definitely worried about this step because chicken and turkey were the only types of meat that I ever ate. In Sarah Taylor’s book, she says that it was her biggest mental hurdle as well, but goes on to say that it was the easiest physical hurdle. She points out that chicken doesn’t taste like much of anything, just the sauce and seasonings that is added to it.
Since I posted Day Seven, Part A, I have cut out the remaining meat from my diet. It has been a lot easier than I had thought. I began to realize that it wasn’t the chicken that I liked, but the food that happens to have chicken in it. If I could get southwestern eggrolls from Chilis without the chicken (cheese too), I would be no less satisfied with the appetizer. In terms of dining out, I can always try asking for menu items without certain ingredients, but in the case of something like southwestern eggrolls, I’m only going to get a vegan version if I make it myself.
This week, as part of my transition away from poultry, I tried making my own seitan, using a recipe from the The Vegan Slow Cooker: Simply Set It and Go with 150 Recipes for Intensely Flavorful, Fuss-Free Fare Everyone (Vegan or Not!) Will Devour cookbook. You end up stretching the dough out and cutting it into pieces. Once cooked, the pieces shrink quite a bit, so next time I may cut some even larger. This seitan recipe is for use in slow cookers (it’s wetter) and it yields quite a bit of seitan, as you can see below. It freezes well, so this will make vegan cooking a lot simpler!
Uncooked dough & cooked seitan in vegan broth
The finished product, packed in broth
A Vegan in Progress 
It’s so true about chicken — seitan really is a great substitute for it since it’s just all the stuff around it that tastes so good! I’ve adapted many chicken recipes to use seitan, and usually even omnis like it.
Exactly!