seitan.

i've been wanting to try it for awhile. how does everyone prepare it? gimmeee your recipes :)

I've only made it once, but I marinated in a jerk sauce and grilled it, then served it over rice.  It was good.

make your own. it's cheaper and way better. the best recipe i've found was in the veganomicon cookbook. it's so good, you'll want to eat it right after you make it (no extra recipe required).

but i also have been known to give seitan a starring role in jambalaya, stews, gumbos, soups, anything into which you can just stir it.

you can make it part of seitan parmesan (galaxy nutritional foods makes a vegan parmesan, and vegan mozzarella can be obtained from follow your heart). for seitan parmesan, just make sure you boil the seitan all the way and pan-fry it first. otherwise it can be nasty.

you can make a seitan piccata (great recipe also in veganomicon).

stir-fry it with veggies or stuff it in a burrito!

but since it is vegetable protein, is it really just as good as meat protein?

Proteins are made up of amino acids.  There is no difference between meat protein and vegetable protein other than the amount/number of amino acids they contain. Foods like tofu have complete proteins, meaning they contain all the amino acids you need, as does meat.  Seitan, beans and other vegetables do not have ALL the required amino acids but they have most of them, and different vegetables have different amino acids.  For example if you eat rice and beans that is a complete protein; however you do not have to eat at the same meal. As long as you are eating a balanced diet, you can get all the required proteins/amino acids from a vegetable diet. 

are there other meat-like substitutes that have complete proteins? maybe made with soy i guess?  

Yes, soy (which includes tofu and tempeh) and quinoa.  There may be more...

i've also been wondering exactly what kind of meat substitute is used by my college's cafeteria in the vegetarian entrees, but the ladies serving certainly don't seem to know... i thought maybe it was seitan, but it could just be textured vegetable protein? Or is TVP only used as a ground meat substitute, not shaped strips and riblets and things? what they use most often are these strips that have a very strange spongy, chewy, texture.  anyone have any idea what that is exactly?

No clue.... sounds more like seiten, but possibly tempeh?

thank you so much for the info!

and yea, i'm guessing the mystery non-meat is probably seitan. it's definitely not tempeh, i know that pretty well.