Adventures in Soy Curls

You may have seen or heard of Butler’s Soy Curls in shops or on other blogs. They are awesome in their simplicity: soy beans. And guess what? They’re really easy to use too! I just rehydrate with warm water and use in recipes that call for seitan or TVP.

Here’s a recipe from A Vegan Taste of Thailand that called for TVP. I think it’s called Soya Mince with Rice Noodles and Peas. The sauce base is coconut milk and red curry paste. I used yellow curry paste instead. Still delicious. This is the only one of the “a vegan taste” series that I own, but I’ve been pretty happy with it. I know the various books get so-so reviews on amazon.com. But they are fairly inexpensive, so the risk is pretty small. I should try another one soon.

And here, I was easily able to substitute the Soy Curls for seitan in this Persian Seitan in Pomegranate Sauce from The Vegan Epicure. Bonus, I was able to use some of the Pom Wonderful Pomegranate juice sent to me a while back. I usually just make this dish with pomegranate molasses. I was hoping using the juice would have it turn out a little less brown, but I didn’t get the concentrated flavor from it that I like. So I ended up adding the pomegranate molasses anyway. We just ate it over bulgur.

Cheezy Soy Curls and Broccoli Pasta

I’m not very good at throw together dinners unless it’s something like veggies, fake meat & mashed potatoes. Every week, I go through my cookbooks, pick things to make, make a list, go to the farmer’s market once and call it good. Kevin is a lot more free-form when it comes to cooking at home. I usually handle those details, but last night Kevin brought over some Soy Curls and Chik-Style Seasoning and said “I want to use these.”

Hmm…okay. I had planned a pasta with beets and I didn’t think the Soy Curls would go very well. So we switched things up. Kevin was in charge of the Soy Curls. He followed the directions for using the Chik seasoning with them. I remembered seeing a cheezy sauce I wanted to try so made that up. And then I boiled up the tri-color rotini I had along with some frozen broccoli. It all came together fairly quickly and turned out super yummy! And bonus, I now have cheezy sauce powder that I can mix up quickly at some future date. Yay!

Cheezy Soy Curls and Broccoli Pasta
Cheezy Soy Curls and Broccoli Pasta

Kevin always makes his food look better on the plate than I do. And you know, we both augmented the drizzled cheezy sauce with piled on cheezy sauce. Yum!