meat substitutes?

[Bobbie]

My mother is trying to eat a raw diet, but its really hard for her, because we're British, and there aren't many recipes for British style food. I love Italian and Mexican so its easy for me, but she doesn't like foreign food. She really misses the food she's been eating her whole life.
Its very difficult to imitate British food because its usually plain meat, potatoes, and vegetables with gravy. She's been vegetarian for over 10 years but she always ate meat substitutes every day. You can buy vegetarian version of just about every meat, and every British dish, and the vegetarian gravys are really good and will make any meal taste great.
The only suitable raw recipes I have are, mashed potato (the cauliflower and the parsnip) and cottage pie, and stuffing (Alissa's noasted turkey).
Do you know any recipes for anything on my list, or can you think of ways to imitate them?

mince and mash
corned beef hash
stew
potpie
lancashire hotpot
onion gravy
meat chunks
chicken
steak
lamb
roast beef
cornish pasty
pies
roast potatoes
yorkshire pudding
fish and chips!
mushy peas
baked beans
fried mushrooms
hash browns
bubble and squeak
dumplings
haggis

[sport]

I think that what you are looking for can not be achieved. It would be easier if you could just start to view food differently in your head and see it as fuel for the body.
Maybe in time your mother will learn to find the taste of a fresh mango to be nicer than a cornish pastie.
All of those vegan processed dishes are very unhealthy.

[Rawkinlocs]

Some people use portobella mushrooms, marinated and/or dehydrated until softened as a type of "meat" in many recipes or as a stand-alone.

But it would be hard to mimic a lot of the things on your list...not saying impossible, just hard.

Maybe play around with various nut pate's and/or nut burger recipes too...using the same seasonings that would be used in the British recipes.

But Sport's right, for the most part, just having a different outlook on food period and learning to enjoy the natural foods and work with what you can as far as recipes are concerned. I know that a friend of mine and I are working on raw soul food and while some things will be quite easy to duplicate, others are impossible so we'll just have to learn to do without some of the old favorites.

[Bobbie]

She does love plain Fruit and Veg and Salads.
It's just hard for her giving up her normal meals completely, and its frustrating for me following raw recipes for her, and her not liking them, because she didn't even like the cooked version.
I'll try the marinated portabello. :) She does love raw mushrooms anyway.
Thankyou :p

[Doe]

Bobbie, the corned beef hash is doable, though time consuming.

I take the better than beef recipe posted here in the recipes area, (with less or no chili powder,) form it into patties, dehydrate and freeze until needed. Then place the number of patties needed in blended tomato juice to rehydrate. To my daughter and I this tasted just like corned beef. Made with the chili powder it reminds us of taco meat.

For the potatoes, put the juice of one lemon and a tablespoon of sea salt in a bowl. Slice the potatoes thin with a mandolin or veggie peeler and swish each silce through the salted lemon juice pushing them all into a pile on one side. The juice will become watery from the potatoes. When you are through slicng and swishing there will also be a thick layer of potato starch in the bottom of the bowl. Remove each slice swishing again then scraping both sides on the edge of the bowl to remove the liquid. Set on mesh dehydrator tray and dehydrate. There is a short time before they become crisp that they taste boiled. If they become crisp, no worries, they will soften again.

Mix or layer the two with some marinated onion and heat in the dehyrator. If she likes this I suggest making large batches of the potatoes and "beef" and keeping them in the freezer until needed.

Teri S

[Doe]

Couldn't find the original "better than beef" post. The search engine will only look for beef and there are too many posts with that word to go through. So I'm posting it from my hard drive. It did come from here. I believe Alissa also has it in her book. I do not use the miso.


Better Than Beef

By Matt Samuelson

Serves 8-10

4 cups pulp from your juicer of carrot, parsnip and/or celery root
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, soaked one hour or more and pureed in a blender
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3-1/2 red onion, finely minced
3 tsp. onion powder
2 tsp. garlic powder
3 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. cumin powder
¼ tsp. cayenne
1 tsp. celtic sea salt
1 Tbsp. unpasteurized dark miso paste
Using your hands, mix all ingredients together well in a large bowl. Let sit for an hour or more for flavors to meld.

Best served just after warming in the dehydrator at 105 degrees.

[sptygl]

sun dried tomatoes are often used............
i have tried some meatball recipes.......and they truly tasted like meat - meatballs!!! :")

[JEN]

Taco Meat (no specific measurements)

Soaked walnuts
chili powder
cumin
nama shoya
sea salt
water if needed to move in processor

I dice up jicama for rice, mix with the meat and add some diced sundried tomato and stuff in a bell pepper or cabbage leaf. No dehydrating needed unless you want to.

[Bobbie]

Wow!!
Thankyou all so much! I will definately try all those.
I can't find jicama where I am, I keep looking for it to make Alissa's potato salad, or the boutenko's french fries. But I'll try your recipe without it.

The corned beef hash sounds amazing. I didn't know you could freeze dehydrated food. My mum will be thrilled about the potato. You'll make her day.

I suppose meatball recipes could be used to make stews, pies etc. Thanks for all the advice :)

[juliebove]

Have you tried sprouts? You can sprout peas, lentils and some beans. Now I am not familiar with most of the foods you list. I presume mushy peas are peas cooked to a mush? Sprouted peas will be crunchier, but the taste is the same. Sprouted lentils remind me very much of refried beans. So perhaps you could try those mixed with a bit of agave for sweetness and a bit of grated onion.

[Sharon in Colorado]

Thanks for that Doe. I'm always looking for something that uses carrot dust, since DH makes carrot juice all the time. Do you always use the whole amount of oil?

Bobbie I had to google images of some of those dishes, just to see what they looked like. Wikipedia is really good at describing them! The bubbles and squeak remind me of a potato latke traditionally served on Hanukkah. Now the haggis, looking at that sort of turned on the old gag reflex. I cannot fathom a vegetarian version of such a thing?

[Bobbie]

Have you tried sprouts? You can sprout peas, lentils and some beans. Now I am not familiar with most of the foods you list. I presume mushy peas are peas cooked to a mush? Sprouted peas will be crunchier, but the taste is the same. Sprouted lentils remind me very much of refried beans. So perhaps you could try those mixed with a bit of agave for sweetness and a bit of grated onion.

Yes mushy peas are dried marrowfat peas which are soaked and then simmered to a lumpy paste. They're served with chips (french fries) and deepfried battered-fish or pies.

They don't taste like fresh peas, but perhaps sprouted dried marrowfat peas would taste the same...I don't know if they're edible....*goes to find out* yes they are according to www.sproutpeople.com.
I'll try blending them a bit and mixing in a pea sauce.
Thanks for the idea. :)

[Bobbie]

Bobbie I had to google images of some of those dishes, just to see what they looked like. Wikipedia is really good at describing them! The bubbles and squeak remind me of a potato latke traditionally served on Hanukkah. Now the haggis, looking at that sort of turned on the old gag reflex. I cannot fathom a vegetarian version of such a thing?

lol
Actually yes there are vegetarian versions. There's one brand called McSween that's available in all British supermarkets, which is made from black kidney beans, lentils, nuts, mushrooms, swede and carrots. In a nationwide contest, out of 8 competitors McSween's meat-version came second, and their vegetarian one came third, beating 5 other meat-haggis.
There are lots of home-made vegetarian recipes floating around.

I think its the spices that dominate the flavour of haggis. Really it tastes like any other meat mixed with oats and spices. I haven't eaten it since I was about 7 so my memory may be faulty.
But I think the vegetarian one would be quite easy to replicate. At least it would be for all ye skilled people, whenever I try to invent something it always ends up horrible.

[Bobbie]

I didn't know you didn't have bubble and squeak in America.
It's similar to the Irish and Scottish dish colcannon except that's made with kale instead of cabbage, and that was a staple dish in itself whereas bubble and squeak is frying the leftovers of the sunday dinner.

I had to go to wikipedia to find out what latke is. We call those potato cakes.

[Doe]

Sharon, sorry I didn't see your question sooner.

I posted the recipe the way it was created. I never make a recipe exactly so. Mine is carrot/celery and or carrot/spinach or maybe carrot/cucumber pulp. I have never used miso, usually use RP's marinated mushroom sauce. Have made it with half the oil. It honestly tastes better to me with a good amount oil maybe not 1/3 cup though. It has to sit to develop a good flavor. So what we eat without dehydrating has usually sat for hours at least.

I'm a mess, you won't get any sense out of me. Like Revvell says, "Play with your food." It's good.

Teri S

[Bobbie]

I tried to make the potatoes but they never became soft...maybe I did it wrong.

[Tirza]

The bubbles and squeak remind me of a potato latke traditionally served on Hanukkah. Now the haggis, looking at that sort of turned on the old gag reflex. I cannot fathom a vegetarian version of such a thing?

I have a recipe for latkes which I will copy here. It may have come from here in the first place. I don't think I tagged it though.

The very thought of haggis has always made me rather ... well ... But then I realized that it is pretty close to what Eastern European Jews call "Kishke" (how's that for gagging?) It was called that because they stuffed the ingredients into a convenient tube that came from the kishkes of an animal. :eek: Just like sausages. Then they lay it on top of the pot of cholent (stew) that is slow-cooking for the Shabbos day meal. It takes on a lot of the flavour of the stew. Nowadays I see that people wrap it in parchment instead. I saved a recipe for that somewhere but though it is vegan, it IS cooked. Haven't worked out how to do it raw yet.

Here are the latkes:
Spinach and Potato Latkes
Serves 8
1 cup macadamia nuts, soaked 8 hours and drained
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons Celtic sea salt
½ cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 cup Rejuvalac or filtered water
1 cup pine nuts, soaked 2 hours and drained
6 cups spinach, chopped fine
1 onion, chopped fine
6 small red potatoes, grated
1 teaspoon paprika
Place macadamia nuts, garlic, salt, lemon juice and Rejuvelac or water into blender and blend well until mixture is smooth.
Add pine nuts to mixture and blend well.
Fold the nut mixture into spinach. Add onions and potatoes, stirring well.
Drop by spoonfuls on a teflex sheet.
Sprinkle paprika on latkes.
Dehydrate for 4 hours.
Sorry, I have not tried this yet even though it is Chanukah right now. Maybe I will today.

[Carmella]

doubleg,
What are latkes exactly? The recipe sounds great (I LOVE spinach!) and I'd like to try it but it would be nice to know how to serve them.

Thanks