Recently a colleague of mine - who has a big green thumb - gave me a few of her surplus cos lettuces seedlings (with a random broccoli thrown in for good measure).
Within a matter of weeks they grew to the size of a lettuce you'd find in the supermarket (which NEVER happens on my balcony - everything is in miniature out there). As they are sharing a pot with the experimental broccoli plant (which needs A LOT of room) I've been harvesting the whole lettuce rather than just picking a few leaves here at there. So much lettuce to eat!
In an effort to buy less free range (or should I say "faux range) meat from the supermarket I've been looking at other alternatives for when we cannot get ourselves to a farmers market to pick up our free range meat haul but want something "meaty" for dinner. I've seen this "Quorn"lurking about in the freezer section for awhile now and people have told me it's pretty good...so I bought some.
Quorn is one of those "faux meat" products that aims to look and taste like meat, but it's not meat. People often seem to wonder why vegetarians want to eat something that looks + tastes like meat when they don't actually eat meat. That's obviously their own personal choice, but I certainly think it'd be nice to have a wider range of products available to cook with so I can see the appeal of "faux meats". Plus, I'm sure a lot of vegos out there like the taste of meat...but don't agree with the ethics of eating animals for various reason. And then there are people like me who eat meat, but want to cut down and introduce more vegetarian food into their cooking for ethical reasons (or health reasons, or whatever reasons).
Anyhoo...Quorn is made from "mycoprotein" which is a mushroom protein and in a Michael Pollan moment I read through the ingredients on the back of the box and there is only one unpronounceable thing that's right at the end of the list of ingredients...so he'd approve I'm sure. It also contains no soy so that's two thumbs up from Mr Pollan.
The Boy is always surprisingly keen to indulge in vegetarian burgers and always cooks them so well. Ergo, it was my turn to put my feet up and let him doing the cooking (sadly these means I have to wash up). Where there are burgers there must be fries so he chopped up some potatoes into wedges and gave them a good sprinkle with his all time favourite Smoky O's "bold beef rub". The wedges tasted amazing.
So the verdict? The burgers were great. They patties tasted like beef to me with quite a smoky flavour and it was a totally pleasant eating experience. My cheeseburger was a total winner. So much so that I may have had a second. Actually they were SO good that we're having these again for our #meatlessMonday dinner tonight.
You can view more Harvest Monday posts on Daphne's Dandelions blog.
