When I became vegetarian about six years ago, I started to learn that, while there are meat-substitutes, few of them are really the same.  Furthermore, when you're a bit repulsed by the idea of eating meat anyway, why would you want to eat something designed to be like meat anyway?That said, there are some flavors that you just don't get as easily anymore, and that's only gotten worse since I started trying to eat vegan this August.  As someone who used to get teased about how often he would suggest pizza, I find myself missing it a lot.  I still will eat it if it's available if someone else has purchased it, since then at least I'm not paying a company to keep a cow in a packed factory in terrible conditions (I am not sure if that's an accurate statement, I haven't read up on how cows are kept recently).  This post is not about pizza, but rather something I didn't even miss: Wings.

In believing that I am capable of being wrong, I've convinced myself that people around me should be able to do whatever they think it right, too, so I usually don't have that much of a problem with people eating meat around me.  Wings, though, have always disgusted me.  Watching someone tear flesh from the bone was disturbing even before I became vegetarian, let alone now, when it sometimes makes me feel nauseated.  A few days ago, though, I was trying to think of fun things to do with seitan and thought about wings.

A first search for vegan wings turned up recipes suggesting boiling the seitan, which is what I'd learned originally from Isa Moskowitz's Vegan with a Vengeance.  In my experience, though, that makes the seitan really spongy and not so interesting, and I prefer some of the methods used by the Vegan Dad, which is where I hit paydirt.

Despite missing a few spices, I improvised a bit and came up with these round balls of fake-chickeny-goodness... or grossness.  It's really hard to decide which it is, because they are sickeningly saucy and tasty.  I would never have imagined mixing margarine and bbq sauce had I not read that recipe.  Obviously I haven't had much experience with barbecue.