More Than I Can Chew

Oops! I've been taking an unexpected blog break, sorry for that! Life's been busy and I've been trying to (as Donny Hathaway sings) hang onto the world as it spins around. I've been singing, swinging, working, AND cooking a lot. I am also very pleased to announce that I've been hitting the gym again and (inspired by The Fruit Pursuit's Sabine) finally decided to try out Bikram Yoga classes starting this monday. For those of you who are not in the know: it's 90 minutes of doing 26 yoga poses in a heated room (approx 40 degrees celsius). Yep. I'll let you know how that went, IF I survive and don't drown in my own puddle of sweat.

All very well and all, let's talk FOOD. Good, lovely, comforting and nourishing veggie food that makes you feel like you've been hugged by a fluffy unicorn. I don't feel like typing out recipes so you'll have to do with a bunch of pictures. Food porn, as we bloggers like to say. Well if my pictures are food porn, I do hope they are on the classy side, not the cheapo german mustache kind.

We vegans love our tofu scrambles, this one's with tomato, mushrooms, garlic and fresh parsley.
(crumble tofu, fry in a pan and season with salt, pepper, turmeric and nutritional yeast)

My friend Marieke came over and because I love her very much I made her raw zucchini pasta with cashewsauce, grilled eggplant and oven baked sweet potato fries.

I visited my sister and because I love her very much as well I did a rerun on the raw zucchini pasta. She watched and learned and is now as hooked as I am.

Almost every single day I start off with a Green Monster. Yeah, that's the kind of health freaky girl I am. This particular one was a spinach, banana and coconut water mixture.

Some days my Mexican roots speak up and scream in my ear about baked black beans, guacamole, jalapeno peppers and cilantro (and green beans, and vegetarian nuggets). There is no escaping those cravings, so there.

And last but not least, a pasta (actually, a very fancy wild garlic spelt spaghetti) with parsnip, rocket salad, tomato and sunflowerseed pesto.

That's it for now people, I'll try and be a better blogger and be back soon.

Seitan vs. TVP: The Satay Showdown

Today the game is on. In an ultimate battle, two chunky meat replacements fight for the top spot.

OR: I wanted to make some nice vegan satay and I couldn't decide if seitan or TVP would be better, so I decided to make both. As always, the whole idea started with a vegetable and a craving, in this case a big bag of fresh organic green beans and an unexplainable wish for spicy satay sauce. Yesterday, during Tuesday Juiceday Schmuesday, I made some fresh seitan, soaked some TVP chunks and let them marinate overnight. I am not sharing a whole recipe here, mostly because in all my enthousiastic and instinctive cooking I didn't think to write down exact amounts of what I threw in the bowl. I was way too busy singing along with some Aretha Franklin and pretending to be a TV chef whirling around the kitchen, with all the neat little bowls of ingredients and all. But let me tell you that the marinade I made consisted of shoyu, lime juice, agave, ground corianderseeds, ground laos, lemongrass, garlic, ginger, shallots and a real hot red chilli pepper, all mixed in the foodprocessor. 

An unexpected advantage of vegan cooking is that you have to be a lot less scared about cross contamination. Ain't it great that I used the marinade as a base for the peanut sauce? I just sauteed the whole lot on a medium fire with some extra garlic and onion, added some organic peanutbutter, coconut cream, ginger syrup and shoyu and there was my perfect little darling calorie bombing sauce. 

 Now for the Satay Showdown: as I was putting the TVP chunks on the sticks I already noticed they were a bit 'tough'. As for the seitan, it was still nice and moist. I had my grill on high heat and everything was ready in just a few minutes (after a slight accident with my grill catching flame and me not being able to see because of al the smoke, but let's not talk about that). Result time!

The seitan had really taken in the flavours, the texture was juicy but a bit on the chewy side. Also, it didn't respond too well on the hot grill and the little amount of fat. Frying might have been a better option for this baby. I'd rate it at a 7.

The TVP was taking the grill love a lot better and looked pretty promising. But after the first bite I knew it would not be able to compete. Marinating it overnight had not made it soft and flavoury, but tough and chewy. No good honey, no good! So much for good looks, ladies and gentleman. I'd say: an astonishing 4 for effort. 

In the next few weeks I'll be trying some more of the same style grilling with tempeh, tofu, kebabs from De Vegetarische Slager (The Vegetarian Butcher) and more. And then let the best of the best battle in a big finale with a whole testing panel! And some tv camera's and me in a new dress! Yeah! 

Today's actual winner was the green bean & peanutsauce combo. And the sweet and sour cucumber/raw zucchini salad I paired it with. Another victory for greens! (And yes, that is cilantro sprinkled on top, ofcourse)