Strawberry milkshake and getting started on some book writing

I have started working on two e-books. One will pertain to how to make seitan at home (a multi-purpose kind of seitan, seitan chorizo and a seitan specially made for thin slicing for sandwiches, pizzas and salads). I am working on developing new improved recipes for the book, as the previous ones are from a project I embarked with on a friend to create a company of seitan products here in Portugal.

The first seitan experiment didn't go so well as I was using a petroleum grade soy sauce I bought by the gallon at the chinese supermarket. Maybe the restaurants are suppose to dilute it with some water? This is what my otherwise pinkish seitan looked like.

I think the colour actually turned out ok, the problem was I couldn't taste anything but the soy sauce. Which isn't necessarily bad if that's what you're going after, and don't spend a lot of money on spices and herbs you will never taste >D

Still, they made for some nice Lisbon style steaks. Though I'm pretty sure they make them the same way all over the country. Also called pregos, they were super delicious on bread with mustard. Also a nice idea, is to soak up the bread in the sauce on the pan before assembling your super delicious sandwich. This second experience pertains to the second book, I'm also starting to work on with the theme of Portuguese Traditional Food (veganized).

If anyone from Portugal is reading what are your favourite portuguese traditional recipes?

Also more ratios, because most recipes are just that. Proportions of ingredients.

For a strawberry milkshake I like to use 100g of frozen strawberries to 350ml of Soy milk. That's about 3,5 ounces of frozen strawberries to 1,5 cups of soy milk. I don't use any sugar as the soy milk is quite sweet already.

Berry juice and Indian dinner

I've been having a special request for some Naan bread for quite a while and finally I lived up to the promise. Making bread always require some extra time on hand. You have the kneading, then the rising of the dough, then maybe you get to put it in the oven or maybe you have to do some extra work on it, which if you do leads to more resting time.

I went all out and decided to have garlic naan, mushroom curry with basmati rice, a tasty mango mousse like dessert, and some fresh berry juice.

The ratios for the berry juice are as follow:

100g frozen Berries mix
3 tbsp Brown sugar
700 ml water (almost 3 cups)

I plan to type and upload the rest of the recipes in the following posts. Stay tuned!

Strawberry juice and Sojasun burger dinner

I went to the supermarket and bought a pack of sojasun tomato basil burgers. I haven't eaten any in a long time. Maybe because they are so expensive, like 3,5€ for 2 burgers, u mad? Still, I was able to squeeze in 2 meals out of one burger, hehehehe. I also made a nice strawberry juice to go along. I usually resort to frozen strawberries for milkshake mostly but decided to try out some ratios for natural juice.

Strawberry juice:
100g frozen Strawberries
2 tbsp Brown sugar
700 ml water (almost 3 cups)

Just put everything in a blender, and bzzz bzzzz.

For the burger, I sliced horizontally on the middle and grilled the skinnier burgers. Then I cut them in half and made a baguette sandwich with some lettuce, onion and a mix of ketchup and soy mayo. Along with a salad half a baguette each was enough.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I recently started working and it's really hard work albeit simple, you dehidrate alot. So when I have the time to before my boat home is due and I'm working a morning or afternoon shift I like to go by the Pingo Doce on the Cais do Sodré station and grab a bottle of natural apple juice, it's totally delicious. Then I save the bottles!

Coffee Lemonade

There are tons of different recipes for this coffee lemonade, and it is also referred to as Mazagran. The following recipe is my personal taste, it does taste quite a bit like lemon, so if you like a softer lemonade, use only the juice of 2 lemons. You might also consider adding another tbsp of brown sugar as this is also not very sweet.

2 Expressos
3 Lemons, juice
3 tbsp Brown sugar
1,4 L water

Mix the lemon juice with the expressos and the brown sugar. Pour it into a 1,5L bottle of water (a standard measure in Portugal). Shake it, leave it in the refrigerator, this is most delicious when it is super fresh. It will also keep for at least 3 to 4 days.