London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

And now I'm going to have some Broa (cornbread!) nom nom, I can find the recipe if anyone wants it. :) I think ive posted it at least twice in other threads though..

Nah, just a real question. There are so many variations on the interwebs, I don't know what to try...

HTFU and eat some meat.

More seriously, I have been served a large number of vegetarian meat balls and all of them have failed to deliver on the combination of taste and texture. The best one was falafel like but completely out of place in a sauce. My mum is a veggie and after a couple of years of trying she realised that the best thing to do is to stop trying to emulate meat and get the tastes and textures from veggies that you can't get from meat. I heartily concur. I love meat but I love veggies too (childhood spent as a passive veggie) and am amazed at the number of vegetarians who just don't seem to enjoy vegetables all that much. They're great.

I also reckon you should be allowed to shoot people who cook with Quorn. In culinary terms, it is an absolute fucking travesty and there is no place for it in a self respecting cook's kitchen. You can do a hundred times better with other things.

+1 meat is made from dead animals, don't try to emulate it.

My fave veggie titbit in that vein is a turkish thing called 'mucver' (pr. mooshver), made from corgette and some kind of curd cheese. They're deep fried so not exactly slimmers' food.

*yawn*

Such a boring and tired rant, mixed with a large serving of assumption that just make you sound like a jerk.

This is one of my problem with so many vegetarian efforts, they keep trying to make it healthy. Fat, even in it's non animal form, is part of what makes food so tasty, as is the right amount of salt and so on. Stop trying to arse about with your "ooh, look it's like meat but it's made from processed vegetable bits and is really good for you". To hell with that, they're nothing like meat in any sense and I rode 600k at the weekend so yes, I really want some vegetables but they better bastard well be designed to give me a coronary.

What assumptions?

I eat Quorn - what's the issue - it's versatile, good protein etc.? In fact Quorn do good Swedish style Meatballs which are pretty damn close to real meatballs IMO.

There are after all vegetarians who do like meat, they just don't want to eat it ......for spiritual/ethical/moral reasons (whatever) - meat substitutes are a good thing in my book!

That you've discovered the secret to vegetarian diet - don't eat fake meat.
Wrong, I don't think this is a "secret" to a vegetarian diet. I am of the opinon that "fake meat" or meat substitutes aren't very good food. Compared to actual vegetables (and pulses and fungi and other plant based foods) they seem, to me, to be rather lacking.

That there can be no good fake meat.
Wrong, this is not an assumption but my opinion of meat substitutes so far. I would happily support and promote one that I thought was actually good food.

That a large number of vegetarians don't like vegetables.
Wrong. I didn't say this nor have I ever assumed this. I said and I'll quote myself here "am amazed at the number of vegetarians who just don't seem to enjoy vegetables all that much". That's not to say that this number is especially high in percentages or even actual figures. However, the number that I have come across amazes me. Sucks to be me if I'm easily astounded.

That a lot of veggies eat Quorn - and are therefore part of a travesty, and more so, not "self respecting cook[s]
Wrong. I tend to find that vegetarians concur with me on this point, although I'll assume I'm not in this company now. Following on from my opinion of meat substitutes above, is it hardly surprising that I think that they are missing out on better food.

Mark, go and eat something. Granted it was a bit of a tired old yawnsome subject.

Get a Meat vs Non meat thread or something and keep this to recipes so i dont have to go through if i wanna find FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

To say that vegetarians should abandon a large portion of culinary heritage because the recipes require meat is pretty silly, in my opinion.

To suggest that vegetarians should pursue a large portion of culinary heritage with poor results where the possibilities exists to create new and better food seems pretty silly to me. But that is, afterall, just my opinion.

So I've been doing some research into farinata and I will be maing it shortly. Thing is I need a massive copper baking dish and wood-fired oven to really get it right.

Please hurry leather-man. I can't handle this veggie vs meatie shit much longer...

This recipe for dolmathes is brilliant. Cooked them for the second time last night, can't wait to cook them again.

http://thursdayfordinner.com/2008/09...ous-dolmathes/

Horatio, there's a brilliant vegan cafe I go to which does a fantastic 'wheatball' sandwich – it's deep-fried wheatballs, covered in a good quality tomato and basil sauce, in a freshly cooked flatbread. The wheatballs according to the waitress, though I haven't recreated them yet, were made of breadcrumbs, mashed kidney beans, wheatflour, minced onion, garlic, a crushed dried red chilli, oregano, with a bit of lemon juice, then fried in groundnut oil till brown. Would work really well will spaghetti + tomato sauce too. If you're not a vegan I would bung an egg in for binding.

^ can I belatedly say that this sounds lush!

Does anyone have any good, authentic recipes for curry? I'm particularly fond of things like Potato and Cauliflower, and Dalls etc.