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This is a single portion, there is enough for another 6 lunches for me and my wife. I do this most Saturdays

It was very photogenic this week.

Simple flour/salt/yeast/water bread dough with store-bought pasta sauce, tomato, sundried tomato, "sausages", and mushroom. Seasoned with fresh garlic and ground pepper.

We had leftover tomatoes and pasta from my wife cooking, so I used up some other veg from the fridge before our shopping.

Some Beans and Peas for protein.

Bowties with Fresh Basil, Tomato and Violife Feta.

I do almost all the cooking. My wife cooks maybe 2 or 3 times a year. She makes this tasty pasta dish that I'm thankful for...not having to cook is a nice treat.

A few pints of fresh grape tomatoes. (Don't bother if they are tastless ones)

Put them in an oven dish, with chopped fresh garlic, Italian spices, basil, salt and pepper and roast it till the tomatoes burst and the juices are bubbling.

Toss that onto some pasta with fresh basil and Violife vegan Feta.

Very tasty.

Cornbread recipe https://veganhomecooks.online/recipes/oil-free-cornbread/

I was fucking around in the kitchen trying out straining tomatoes to reduce cooking time for sauces and was also thinking about what I could do with the liquid fraction.

I washed some wadi (soy chunks, check the indian food stores/sections) and squeezed them well before putting them in some of the liquid in a sauce pan and simmered. The flavor wasn't remarkable so I added some salt but still nothing to write home about.

So it's not a waste to use the liquid as cooking liquid for wadi but it doesn't do anything special. So I decided to turn it into a glaze.

I am making a bbq sauce at the same time so it was inspired by that. I added:

• apple cider vinegar
• brown sugar
• cayenne pepper
• smoked paprika
• mustard powder

And just let it thicken slowly in the sauce pan. Delicious!

My wife and I have been really loving soy curls. Mostly I have been doing bbq curls (soak 115g in hot water for 10 minutes, drain, cook until done to your liking, add ~1/4c (59ml) bbq sauce of your choice). Dragon soy curls is another one I liked a lot. I also did sweet and sour soy curls, but cannot find the recipe I used.

I am looking for more recipes using them. Please share what you do with soy curls. As this is vegan home cooks, keep recipes vegan. I am a recovering alcoholic, and while I should not have to say, no alcohol, someone always gives an alcohol suggestion.

If you do not share an entire recipe, please share a link to one.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/42117003

What’s the best BIFL electric pressure cooker?

I mostly need something that’ll cook beans fast (with pressure). I want something electric with lots of (pressure-related) safety features. I figured if I got a multicooker, then I could also make yogurt; specifically I want the ability to set the temperature myself (not just "high, med, or low" – but the specific granular number of degrees in Celsius, including low temps down in the 30s)

I’ve read good things about Instant Pot, but I’ve also read some people say they broke after some years. That’s expected for some percent of devices, but the big red flag was that I couldn’t find any place on their site to buy replacement parts. They had a video describing the different components, but it was 40 seconds of trash – no info on how to replace the PCB or troubleshoot other common hardware issues to actually repair this thing. So it didn’t seem very BIFL..

I’m wondering if there’s any commercial-grade alternatives to Instant Pot, which really are BIFL. Something in the thousands of dollars, not hundreds (I’d also be willing to pay more for one that has better sensors for cooking rice – and elimination of stupid fads like radio-control-by-app). Something where they offer very few models and lots of standardized parts – where those parts are clearly purchasable on their website, and they have comprehensive guides on how to fix and replace parts that fail after 10 years.

What’s the best commercial-grade BIFL electric multi cooker?

My wife's had been experimenting with seitan recently, and her latest was bangers. Came out really well!

I did! It was so good. I wish we could put up more than one image so you get the serving as a bonus as well as the cooking pictures.

So this was the test of the strips and nuggets!

Went with what industrial beige would require so 200° fan assisted for 15 mins...

These were excellent. They had a great texture and I think it's the shape, rather than the material creating that.

The burgers have been great but they are a mild chore to bite through. I already made them smaller and thinner than I would have ideally but yeah cutting the pieces right down to sub-1-inch pieces is a bit of a whole new world.

They weren't too visually oily like the burgers which is something. I still am thinking about trying to reduce batter and frying time - I try not to talk in a way that is inspired by diet culture - and of course health matters- but I certainly wouldn't say no to less extra calorie dense coating if I can still get the same crunch/ flavour.

I kept a few strips back because I really want to make some kind of nice, bland, iceberg lettuce, mayonnaise and sweet chili sauce wrap.

But yeah - short story - delicious, spongy, a delight to eat, and very good beige! Probably won't be for a little while (it'll probably be tomorrow or later, let's be honest, even though it'll tucker me out - I'm quite motivated by this), but I'm really looking forward to creating a small mountain of chunks!

I had them with a lot of tamarind ketchup and some leftover roasted sweet potato

Very pleased to announce the experiment progresses well!

This was from frozen at 190° for about 20 minutes....

It was good!

Unattractive amount of oil came out on first turn which suggests quicker frying stage next time.

Ran out of corn flour so pure wheat batter - definitely wants to try it with a decent amount of corn flour.

Kind of inoffensive which suits the simplicity of the mass appeal that I'm looking for.

I'd like it to have been slightly tastier.

I would have a much stronger tasting marinade for the initial lump of flour before even simmering it let alone baking it.

I also have strips and nuggets to try as well!

The quest for a more ethical but industrial grade beige dinner component continues....