Can I have my money back? This is not the summer I ordered online last month. No, what you’ve sent is wet, thundery and miserable. I want the blazing hot sunshine I was promised by that there weatherman. And by all the foolish optimists who spent the whole of May telling each other that the summer would be long and hot.
I suppose I’ll have to make do with a virtual summer. One that happens in my mind, or in memory.
To start this off here is a pic of a BBQ, the one and only so far this year that Sig Other and I have managed to create. We are a bit out of practice, so some things got closer to the charcoal than planned!
I adore veggie BBQ food. I used to like non-veggie, but that was a quarter century ago or more. I got hooked on BBQ food when, as a teenager I went to Canada for a stay. There, on the spacious balcony of a distant cousin’s penthouse flat on Yonge St in Toronto, we BBQ’d every night. This was BBQ at its most civilised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonge_Street
It continued during my stay in some other distant cousin’s cabin on Lake Kashagawigamog. There are no pics of this lake as the interwebby thingy is not a suitable place to display my first and last attempt at fishing. It was a traumatic event, sitting in a small boat in the middle of the night in the middle of the lake being eaten by insects and dangling live bait off a line into the water. Most hideously, I can never forget being accidentally slapped in the face by a wriggling dying frog with which one clumsy fishing companion had baited his hook. Fortunately, I managed not to catch anything, so never faced cooking and eating something I’d killed myself –shudder!
Eventually I had to come home, leaving behind sun and BBQs but I soon invested in a small BBQ for Dad’s next birthday, so I could convert the family to this way of eating. They were happy to be converted, but we never managed the level of civilisation of my first BBQs. And rarely has the weather managed to stay hot enough to provide optimum BBQ conditions either.
I became rather adept at creating homemade dead-burgers, but have never managed to find a way of making a veggie meat-substitute burger. Until recently!
TVP burger
Soak TVP (textured vegetable protein) in water for ten minutes until it is swollen but not at all runny.
Prepare breadcrumbs (I used gluten free wholemeal bread, as it is so much lighter than ordinary)
A small amount of tahini
Very finely chop spring onion
Very finely chop a little fresh herbs of your choice
Beaten egg
Seasoning
Mix all together adding whatever extra is needed to make the mix fairly sticky and shape into very small patties. Large sized ones will crumble too easily.
These are still too delicate to grill straight onto the BBQ, so use a vegetable basket or fish griller or some other tool to contain the burgers and so that they can be turned over easily.
The easiest way to cook veggie BBQ is to skewer a selection of veggies on bamboo skewers and baste with BBQ sauce. My favourite vegetables are aubergine, which is great, sliced lengthways and brushed with marinade, as is courgette.
Halloumi cheese is substantial enough to withstand the BBQ treatment as long as you avoid the low fat one, which is too watery, so shrinks to nothing.
But actually, the very best thing about BBQs is the social aspect. It is great to share food outdoors and to take ages over cooking, chatting and enjoying a small bottle or two of Peroni, and leaving the clearing up till some other time.
I suppose I’ll have to make do with a virtual summer. One that happens in my mind, or in memory.
To start this off here is a pic of a BBQ, the one and only so far this year that Sig Other and I have managed to create. We are a bit out of practice, so some things got closer to the charcoal than planned!
I adore veggie BBQ food. I used to like non-veggie, but that was a quarter century ago or more. I got hooked on BBQ food when, as a teenager I went to Canada for a stay. There, on the spacious balcony of a distant cousin’s penthouse flat on Yonge St in Toronto, we BBQ’d every night. This was BBQ at its most civilised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonge_Street
It continued during my stay in some other distant cousin’s cabin on Lake Kashagawigamog. There are no pics of this lake as the interwebby thingy is not a suitable place to display my first and last attempt at fishing. It was a traumatic event, sitting in a small boat in the middle of the night in the middle of the lake being eaten by insects and dangling live bait off a line into the water. Most hideously, I can never forget being accidentally slapped in the face by a wriggling dying frog with which one clumsy fishing companion had baited his hook. Fortunately, I managed not to catch anything, so never faced cooking and eating something I’d killed myself –shudder!
Eventually I had to come home, leaving behind sun and BBQs but I soon invested in a small BBQ for Dad’s next birthday, so I could convert the family to this way of eating. They were happy to be converted, but we never managed the level of civilisation of my first BBQs. And rarely has the weather managed to stay hot enough to provide optimum BBQ conditions either.
I became rather adept at creating homemade dead-burgers, but have never managed to find a way of making a veggie meat-substitute burger. Until recently!
TVP burger
Soak TVP (textured vegetable protein) in water for ten minutes until it is swollen but not at all runny.
Prepare breadcrumbs (I used gluten free wholemeal bread, as it is so much lighter than ordinary)
A small amount of tahini
Very finely chop spring onion
Very finely chop a little fresh herbs of your choice
Beaten egg
Seasoning
Mix all together adding whatever extra is needed to make the mix fairly sticky and shape into very small patties. Large sized ones will crumble too easily.
These are still too delicate to grill straight onto the BBQ, so use a vegetable basket or fish griller or some other tool to contain the burgers and so that they can be turned over easily.
The easiest way to cook veggie BBQ is to skewer a selection of veggies on bamboo skewers and baste with BBQ sauce. My favourite vegetables are aubergine, which is great, sliced lengthways and brushed with marinade, as is courgette.
Halloumi cheese is substantial enough to withstand the BBQ treatment as long as you avoid the low fat one, which is too watery, so shrinks to nothing.
But actually, the very best thing about BBQs is the social aspect. It is great to share food outdoors and to take ages over cooking, chatting and enjoying a small bottle or two of Peroni, and leaving the clearing up till some other time.
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