Saturday, March 3, 2012

Textured vegetable protein?

Ok, so I am thinking about becoming a vegetarian but there are some things that my son will still want to eat, like tacos, that I would still like to fix. Someone told me you can use textured vegetable protein for some of these dishes. Is there a certain kind to use? I have seen it online in dry bags, minced, in cans etc. what do I use? Does anyone have a favorite brand? Any suggestions? Thanks so much!|||TVP comes dehydrated in flakes, crumbles and chunks, purchased usually in bulk from health food stores, online and in some major grocery chains. You can find recipes online for reconstituting the dry crumbles. Care should be taken when using pre-seasoned crumbles as many list "artificial and NATURAL flavors" - which in my opinion might possibly be actual meat fat, etc.





You can also find crumbles available in your freezer section, and sometimes the produce section will have an area for veggie products. Some brands of fake meat are Worthington Foods, Morning Star, Loma Linda Foods, Boca and others.





When substituting TVP in recipes for sauces, I reconstitute first; for sloppy Jos and tacos, I prefer the crumbles from the freezer section and for soups, the dry version is fine, but you may need to add a bit more liquid. If you use recipes that have TVP listed as an ingredient, just follow the directions|||I don't really like tofu, etc so what I like to use is rice with cooked tomatoes and almonds all mixed together in place of things like meat for tacos. It's quite good. You can make it spicy, use lettuce, cheese (if you eat cheese), avocado.





For a change, it's particularly delicious wrapped in butter lettuce instead of taco shells.|||I buy the dry kind in bulk from Winco. I make sloppy joes with it too. You can use it any way you would use ground beef. Just add boiling water to a bowl of dry tvp and let it cook. Then put it in a frying pan and mix it with some taco seasoning and tomato paste and you'll have some super tasty tacos.|||You can use it in almost anything you would normally use ground beef. The only difference between different types is the size of the pieces. I buy it in bulk from a health food store.|||Yes, TVP tacos are very good. Dry bags is the only way it comes...its the only kind i have incountered anyways.

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