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Seitan rejected my soul

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I love a good piece of meat… fake, that is and fake meat rarely comes better than a chunky slab of seitan. Seitan is a meat substitute made of wheat gluten originating from China and it is particularly chewy. It is perfect for cooking with sauces and marinades as it sucks up liquid and flavours expertly.

I don’t see a lot of quality seitan in the UK so it was with immense delight that I watched Josh produce a jar of the good stuff from his grocery bag recently. Lima seitan is a quality wheat meat that is easy to carve and is barely flavoured, making it perfect to absorb any sauce you throw at it.

It doesn’t appear to be available in many stores but the Lima website does have a list of suppliers and retail outlets. It is apparently available in countries as far spread as the Czech Republic, Bahrain, Croatia, Spain, Israel, Slovenia and Iceland. Their availability reads like the Eurovision finalist list! We didn’t have to travel that far to nab our jar as Josh made his purchase in Alara Health Store located on Marchmont Street in Bloomsbury.

So what did I make with this wonder product?

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Hold the cheese

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Pizza is a treat not often on offer to vegans. Most mainstream, mass-produced pizzas are heaped with dairy cheese and/or contain animal fats within their dough bases. Vegans have for a long time been excluded from this common snack, but there are more than a few places on the planet where you can get a nice slice free from non-human animal content.

One of my favourite restaurants in the world is the gorgeous and quaint Threeworlds Organic Cafe on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. This low key location sells the most delicious and nutritious pizzas I have tasted. Cruzer Pizza in Los Angeles has mastered the art of copying firm favourites such as meat lovers without hurting anyone. The Grove Cafe in Leeds, UK offers up a selection of pizzas topped with Vegerella vegan cheese. All of these restaurants have the good stuff, but I have always struggled to locate a pizza without cruelty in London. That was until Franco Manca came into my life.

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I like my potatoes creamy

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Potato is a food I enjoy mostly any which way. Roasted, fried, mashed… you cook it, I’ll devour it. With this established, you will understand it was with great excitement I set about creating a mouth-watering potato breakfast swimming in vegan cream and cheese.

Alpro long-life vegan cream

Alpro products are everywhere in the UK. You can’t go into a major store without running into their yogurt, custard, pudding and milks. They produce a wide range of dairy substitutes using non-GM soy beans grown on land that is investigated to not have been deforested or reclaimed. Best of all, the entire Alpro range is suitable for a vegan diet. I had recently been craving creamy potatoes, leading me to search out the Alpro long-life, dairy free soy cream. This cream is housed in a handy and neat resealable carton. But I won’t pretend I needed to reseal it. All of the cream was used in one sitting.

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