This Philippines-inspired Pinoy style seitan curry is a vegetarian variation of  Ginataang Manok, which is chicken cooked in coconut milk.
I’ve substituted the chicken with seitan and added a few more spices to maximise the flavour. Â If you have a wheat allergy, or just don’t like seitan for some reason, you can substitute tofu for the seitan. Â I’ve tried this, and while I didn’t like the result as much as with the seitan, it was still a very good dish.
Just remember to press the tofu for 15 or 20 minutes before using it. Otherwise, it won’t absorb all the wonderful aromas of the spices. Â I’d also recommend using a nice and firm tofu. If not, the results could be a bit mushy.
If you do use seitan, I strongly recommend making it yourself. It’s much cheaper and more satisfying  than buying it at a shop, and you can add appropriate spices directly to the dough to complement your recipe.  You can find my basic seitan recipe here.
Before I became a vegetarian, one of my all-time favourite foods was hamburgers.  So when I finally converted to vegetarianism, I decided I had to learn how to make veggie burgers.  Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) seemed like the way to go for substituting the meat, and after a few slightly disastrous attempts, I eventually came up with this recipe for TVP Veggie Burgers.  The recipe was an instant success with both family and friends and has been a weekly staple of my diet ever since.
If you prefer not to use TVP, these spicy beanburgers are also rather tasty, and a good alternative for those who try to refrain from “meat substitutes” like TVP or tofu.
The hardest part of the recipe is getting the right ratio of wet and dry ingredients so that the burgers stick together when you mould them into shape.  This is achieved by varying the exact amount of breadcrumbs added to the mix. At first, try using a little bit less than the indicated amount and keep adding more until you get them to a consistency where they stick together well but not to your hands.  As always, practise makes perfect.
What you’re going to need:
200 g TVP (Vegetable Protein Mince)
1 small onion, finely chopped
15 ml olive oil
50 ml soy sauce
250 ml boiling water
2 eggs
250 g breadcrumbs
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
What you have to do:
Mix the TVP in a large mixing bowl with the soy sauce and boiling water and wait for it to puff up (about 2 minutes).
In the meantime, fry the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat until it’s translucent but not brown and add to the TVP mixture.
Add the paprika, curry powder, salt and pepper, and stir well.
Beat in the 2 eggs and add breadcrumbs. Mix well.
Cover the mixture with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Take it out and form it into tightly packed balls, about the size of tennis balls.
Squeeze the balls between your hands to make patties about 1.5 cm thick.
Fry the patties in a little oil over medium heat until they are dark brown on the outside (about 4 minutes per side).
Leave the finished burgers on a wire cookie rack to cool, allowing the oil to run off so as to avoid greasy burgers.
Serve between 2 slices of toasted whole-grain bread with your favourite toppings.
Preparation time:Â 45 minutes (including 30 minutes setting in fridge)
It’s funny, as a kid growing up, I always hated sweet potatoes (and pumpkin for that matter, as they’re virtually the same when cooked), and it was all my mother could do to get me to eat even the tiniest mouthful. However, somewhere along the way, I developed a taste for them, especially when they’re mixed with other veggies or pulses that I like more. I invented this Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup one day when I had some sweet potatoes I needed to use up before they went bad, and the result was an instant success both for me and my family.
The soup is very filling and the sweet potato provides lots of dietary fibre, beta carotene and vitamin C. As I mentioned before, cooked sweet potato and cooked pumpkin are virtually identical in taste, so if you want, you can go ahead and substitute an equal quantity of pumpkin for the sweet potato to create a tasty pumpkin soup.
Add the water and stir well, make sure you get any spices that may have stuck to the bottom.
Cover the pot, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for about 25 minutes or until the potatoes and sweet potatoes are nice and soft, stirring occasionally.