@SaintlySin made the most incredible celebration dinner last night with Juicy Marbles steaks (https://juicymarbles.com/) and La Fauxmagerie Brixton Blue cheese sauce (https://lafauxmagerie.co.uk/) and if I hadn't known I honestly would not have been able to tell these weren't animal products from the taste and texture. There really is no need to eat meat* when vegan alternatives are this good.
*unless obviously you have a health issue that requires you to.
"A frankly unhinged quantity of blue cheese sauce" Any amount is always just right, perhaps add just add a smidge more 😂
Honestly though; it looks really good, and I'm sure it was incredibly tasty 🤤
@SaintlySin @Aprazeth it was delicious 😊
@afewbugs @SaintlySin The first image just made me check the peas are the right way up
@SaintlySin @ben she carefully rotated each one 180 degrees individually
@afewbugs @SaintlySin Brixton Blue is sooo good! Never thought about putting it in a sauce. It did end up in a three cheeze toastie this week.
@SaintlySin @nicol It's one of the only ones that's really managed to capture that blue cheese tang isn't it
@afewbugs @SaintlySin I fed it to a carnivore chef pal for an expensive hotel once, who was completely taken in that it was a (slightly unusual) real cheese. Honestly Tasty Blue (https://www.healthysupplies.co.uk/blue-100g-honestly-tasty.html) is also great… it seems the trick is using classic cheese mould – Tasty Blue uses the Roquefort mould.
@SaintlySin @nicol ooh, we'll have to look out for that one!
Oooh!
::looks at web site::
I'm not bothered about steak, but I might have to check out that cheese at some point. Thanks for the link!
Also, "fauxmage" haha!
@SaintlySin @unchartedworlds I mean the cheese itself is great, but the name definitely awards bonus points 😂
@SaintlySin @afewbugs Except many of these vegan meat replacement products are still hideously expensive compared to their meat counterparts. Until that changes "I can't afford it" is going to be a perfectly good excuse.
@Infoseepage @SaintlySin @afewbugs There's been a huge boom in quick-cook faux meat products in recent years. Most of them are ultra-processed, more expensive than meat and probably worse for your health too (though, I definitely indulge in them sometimes).
My advice is to explore cuisines and dishes which are "accidentally vegan" - already great without making a substitution. Indian lentil dals, Mexican bean dishes, Japanese tofu dishes, etc.
@Infoseepage @SaintlySin @tobyjaffey interesting and possiblity slightly counterintuitive fact, but in spite of being more processed meat substitutes are still often healthier than the meat they're replacing https://social.coop/@afewbugs/115581974260708891
@afewbugs @SaintlySin @tobyjaffey Yeah, both of the major beef replacement brands in the US are significantly more healthy for you in terms of trans fats and cholesterol, though higher in sodium. I got interested in these products because I wanted to lower my fat and sugar intake without making radical changes to my diet. I was living on Maui at the time and I liked the ease of preparation and it was cheaper than going out for a burger, but wallet blowing more expensive than straight up beef.
@Infoseepage I knew I was going to get at least one comment assuming this is what we eat every day, this always happens when I post a special meal and people see that but not our regular boring food. Vegans don't eat steak substitutes every night because they are expensive, just as I imagine non vegans don't eat steak and blue cheese sauce every night. 95% of our meals are based around tofu, beans or lentils not meat substitutes, but you don't see that because we don't post every curry or stir fry we make or everyone would be bored to tears
I'd compare this to going out for dinner, but at home. Which is a lovely thing!
Also, bring on this so called "boring food". I eat teff flakes with hot water once a day (for dietary reasons) and trust me *very few dishes* strike me as boring after that 😂
(Don't worry I am used to the flavor and texture of the flakes these days)
@Aprazeth ouch, I'm glad you're used to it and I'm sure it's better than the alternative but that sounds hard!
It's fine, really! The alternative would be taking another dose of either metamucil (ughhhhh) or another fiber replacement.
And the teff isn't bad at all, but every single day it becomes a bowl of nothingness.
So I try to spruce my other meals up where I can. Hence why I enjoy seeing even the "boring foods" because it can give me new ideas on what to do with the foods I can eat (well new for me at least) :)
@afewbugs @Infoseepage if it doesn't totally bore you I'd love to see some lentil curries that you love to eat. Have borrowed a few cook books from the library but it's hard to know where to start to discover new favourites.
@debbie noted, more curries incoming 😂 Is there anything specific you want tips on replacing?
@afewbugs for me personally I'd love to learn some lentil curries that are tasty and easy to make.
I'd love to know your weekly/fortnightly curry that you can make with your eyes shut that you love eating.
The only thing that might make it tricky is that I have a nut intolerance so without nuts is best for me.
I currently have a really nice chilli non carne recipe that has evolved from Jack Monroe's veganish book that gets made monthly as a huge batch that I'm happy to share if anyone is interested. It takes 24hrs from prep to eating although it can be shorten if you use tinned beans.
@debbie so my go to is some anglicised version of dahl, with apologies to anyone from the Indian subcontinent who might be about to read this. Fry up an onion and garlic with curry powder then add boiling water, stock ( I use Marigold bouillon) and your pulse - red lentils or split mung beans take about 45 minutes in a pan, yellow or green split peas take more like an hour and a half unless you have a pressure cooker which makes things much faster. You can also add chunks of root vegetables or squash - we get a weekly veg box so this is a good way of using whatever came this time. You can just leave that boiling away, add greens about ten minutes before it finishes for a bit of colour and stir a spoon of mango chutney through before serving for a bit of tang
@afewbugs To me, there were a number of promises made about these fake meat products.
1. That we're going to make these things so good a match in terms of texture, taste and preparation that you won't really care that you're not eating meat. IMO, this has been achieved to my personal satisfaction.
@afewbugs
2. Because this stuff is all plant or vat derived, we'll be able to offer it much cheaper and at scale than inefficient animal husbandry based system. To date, they've missed cost parity by a pretty wide mark.
I just checked and the two most popular beef substitutes are running at 80-100% more expensive than ground beef at two supermarket chains where I normally live in the US.
@Infoseepage to my mind vegan meat substitutes are what you buy when you want to replicate the taste or texture of a specific animal products for a special dish. If you just want to substitute the protein component of a dish and don't care that the flavour will be a bit different you use something cheaper. To take your example of ground beef if that's someone you eat regularly, you seem to be thinking that people trying to reduce animal products would be going out and buying substitute beef for a regular meal. But for an everyday cottage pie or Bolognese I'd just use brown lentils instead of beef. The substitute is what you buy for a birthday or promotion meal
@afewbugs @Infoseepage I also suggest learning to do seitan (very easy to do) at home and stocking up on that.
And also buying textured vegetable protein, which is a cheap alternative for making Ragout or minced meat. Especially if properly seasoned.
The "faux meat" stuff is still expensive because it's still not widely adopted + some countries still put a luxury VAT on them instead of the regular food VAT. (italy, for example)
There are a lot of alternatives that fall into the "vegan meat substitutes" that you don't need to spend a lot on, except if you REALLY want that specific taste and texture. Which, in this case, I don't find it any different from getting a gourmet slice of dead animals in a supermarket for a fancy dinner.
@Infoseepage and honestly I must admit I don't know what food prices are like in the US, but here in the UK lentils are an order of magnitude cheaper than beef.
I've been meaning to try those steaks, I was a bit sceptical, but I'll take your recommendation.
There are some pretty convincing chicken alternatives by Th!s I eat quite regularly.
@SaintlySin @TwoClownsEating This! is witchcraft, the bacon, sausages and chicken thighs are so convincing
Witchcraft indeed!
They do bags of frozen chicken pieces. Chuck some in a stir fry and they're banging (I had this last night).
@TwoClownsEating @afewbugs @SaintlySin
Our stir fry addition:
1 block of firm tofu (Aldi's 99p one is fine)
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp cornflour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp coarse ground pepper
🔸 In a medium bowl, add the oil and dry stuff and mix into a paste
🔸 Dice and add the tofu, then stir until all the tofu bits are coated
🔸 Tip onto a baking tray, then stick it in the oven at 180 for 20-25 minutes.
@afewbugs @SaintlySin
hooray for the tasty (and the chef!) and *thank you* for your little caveat at the bottom. i have tried countless times to be vegan, but every time i go more than a year or so, i get very ill, and i am *very* careful about nutrition. these days i don't even last that long, given how very ill i already am. i was veggie for nearly a decade but that took its toll, and as i can't eat dairy anyway ...
i was told by a dr many years ago that i needed to eat meat in part bc i don't metabolise protein properly and in relation to the connective tissue disease, and even though i've tried to ignore that countless times since, it would appear that he was correct.
so i reluctantly but gratefully eat wild-caught, msc-certified fish and organic/happy poultry (nothing beyond) when i feel i have to and pray the pulses will be enough in between (and i stretch the in between for as long as i can).
anyway yes thank you, bc believe me i give myself plenty of guilt over it already! i don't even like meat 😂😭
@SaintlySin @moonrabbit we can all only do what we can, and making yourself sick isn't going to help anyone! Thinking back that was rather inelegantly phrased and I should probably have said "there's no need to eat meat for flavour" or something, but I'm glad you found the way I phased it helpful!
@afewbugs Looks super tasty 😊 If you haven't tried it: the "Kinda Salmon" from Juicy Marbles is better than most kinda actual salmon.
Question about those cheeses. I tried a variety of plant-based cheese some years ago. All had a heavy base of either shea butter or coconut oil.
While tasty my stomach kinda.. disagreed with it (even in moderation) so I stopped trying them. Is this something you recognise?
@SaintlySin @Pepijn the juicy marbles salmon isn't available in the UK yet unfortunately, but we're eagerly awaiting the day it is!
Yeah a greasy base is a bit of a problem with a lot of plant-based cheeses, although the nut based ones like the ones from La Fauxmagerie (I don't know if they ship internationally) have proportionally more protein. I haven't really found that to cause any digestive problems though because if you ignore last night's truly decadent dinner I don't usually eat them in large enough quantities and I think this might actually be a country thing. I follow Fork Ranger which is this great Dutch initiative to get people to reduce the amount of animal products in their diets by sharing facts and recipes, and I think most of it is written in Dutch and then translated into English. And I'm always a bit surprised by how much focus it puts on cheese - in the UK we tend to use little bits of cheese as a seasoning but meat is the main protein component of the meal,
@SaintlySin @Pepijn whereas the impression I get from the substitutions Fork Ranger is suggesting is that in The Netherlands cheese often makes up the main part of the meal
@afewbugs I may be wrong but I think that in the early days of vegetarianism in The Netherlands as I know them (I mean in the late 1980s, and 1990s), cheese was seen and used as main replacement for the meat part of a meal. Since we have/had an abundance of both in this country, it probably made sense.
While I love cheese, I am glad there is an increasing focus other options to create a tasty vegetarian meal. But 'tradition' may still make our vegetarian recipes 'cheesy'.
@afewbugs I think you just hit upon the issue I had! When I said "moderate" I was still talking about a large chunk of the meal. I also have some internal issues that make me a bit more sensitive to greasy stuff.
While "meat replacements" are easy to find here in Denmark, the cheeses are not. I'm going to look for them again though.
(and be moderate..)
And seriously. That "land based salmon" is soooo good!
@Pepijn @afewbugs @SaintlySin the Juicy Marbles stuff looks great. Where can I buy it in the EU?
It’s produced in Slovenia, so I could theoretically drive there in a few hours, but that’s a little over the top for a grocery run.
@slothrop Here LIDL irregularly sells it in their "department of OMG LOOK THEY RANDOMLY HAVE THIS THING AGAIN" department.
I haven't seen it anywhere else.
@Pepijn @SaintlySin @slothrop I don't actually know what country you're in? Here in the UK we can get it in Tesco's, so if you have any of those you could try there
@afewbugs @SaintlySin I'm definitely a sauce guy, but even I'd say you've gone a bit OTT with it there. 🙂
@SaintlySin @GlasWolf I regret nothing!
@afewbugs @SaintlySin More power to your sauce jug!
