Addendum: The Taste of Soy Milk

Many apologies for not writing anything new for a week. This week was spent travelling to London to visit family for the Easter tide and then...I honestly had nothing else to talk about.

HOWEVER, I had brought my soy milk home and decided to eat my most favourite of cereals: Cheerios. For some reason, among the tiny range of cereals in the Czech Republic, Cheerios can never be found. NOW, with Cheerios, the taste of soy milk is blatantly obvious.

It tastes like...stale water cream. It's not horrible per say, but with the first spoonful of Cheerios it's a shock. The obviousness of the taste then ebbs away. So it seems I accidentally discovered the best way to enjoy/consume soy milk: use it with muesli, and nothing else.

Discussion: Milk Alternatives

1) Oat Milk

I'm getting this one out of the way quickly as I didn't actually try this one. The reason? My friend tried it and said it tasted like porridge. I really don't fancy porridge-flavoured milk and I highly doubt it would mix well with my strawberry muesli.

2) Soy Milk

This is the obvious alternative. So obvious I bought it without thinking when lent began. The biggest complaint against soy milk is that it doesn't taste like milk. And here is when I make a shocking statement: I can't taste the difference. I really can't. If I try hard then...I guess I can taste cream in the soy milk somewhere? I dunno, maybe I'm just not that partial to milk? The biggest drawback to this milk as I can see is its price. Soy milk isn't commonly sold in the Czech Republic, so almost the only brand available is Alpro Soya.

It is a quality product, of course, but being priced at 60 koruna (crowns) or the equivalent of £2, makes this a luxury product to many. For a third of that price (in either currency) you can buy the same amount of organic milk. In the UK, there are at least competing soy dairy manufacturers, so UK consumers don't lose out so much.

3) Rice Milk

Unfortunately, the carton doesn't specify which kind of rice, but whatever. I bought this for 33 koruna (just over £1) from DM, a German chain of chemists that also sells organic products. It's god-awful. There's barely any flavour and the fluid itself is so thin and watery. It was easily coloured by the strawberry bits in my muesli, which also meant their flavour was drained. I was so happy when I finally used this up.

4) Soy Rice Milk

I guess the main difference between this one and soy milk is that soy milk uses the beans. I bought this from DM at the same price as the rice milk. It wasn't as viscous/'creamy' as the soy milk, but it wasn't watery either. It gets brownie points for not interfering with the muesli flavour; as for the milk itself I swear I taste a whiff of vanilla.

Of the three I've tried, my personal favourite is soy milk. No surprise there.

Discussion: Our Dependence on Milk

A long long time ago, our ancient ancestors living in what would become Europe, discovered milk freely provided (by cows) and its versatility. Playing around with milk and its offshoot products like yoghurt and cheese meant our ancestors widened their sources of food, so they could hunt and forage less frequently. Notice I specified Europe; Europeans have a bizarrely low level of lactose intolerance; in fact, beyond a certain age, it is usually a bad idea for humans to consume so much milk. Or dairy. Yet we have it in our cereals every day.

So milk has ended up being an intrinsic part of our diets, our society. Is it on the same level as bread? Does a lack of milk in supermarkets signal an imminent collapse of society? Well, in most cases it doesn't, it normally means the usual freight carriers haven't arrived due to a natural disaster or something. But I would like to share with you a case from Australia.

When I was in Australia this time last year, one of the more important news stories was the supermarket rivalries forcing down the price of milk. It was possible to buy 1 litre of milk for AUS$1. That is actually ridiculously cheap. So you not only have rival supermarkets using milk - an everyday essential - as leverage to get shoppers, but the authorities had to step in since this was undercutting the actual value, meaning dairy farmers were being forced to lose money.

Most of us actually don't realise how cheap milk really is. I find this interesting, because you would think that milk made from plant material would be a lot cheaper. To get fresh cows' milk, you need land to grow animal feed, which is then transported to a shop/warehouse, transported to a farm, then the produced milk is transported to shops up and down the country and beyond. I suppose the real reason why fresh milk remains cheap is that, for the most part, milk comes straight out of the cow and is then bottled/packaged, after a pasteurising process. Also, milk is rarely exported beyond a country's borders. Plant milk, such as soy milk, is grown as a crop, put through a lengthy production process, packaged and then exported.

Of course, while cost is the main factor, unless they're lactose intolerant or health freaks, people stay away from 'fake' milk because...well, it's not 'real' milk. Tomorrow I'll be comparing different milk products and seeing how they measure up.

Recipe: Bean Chili

I cooked this up tonight just to see if I could make my own bean chili, considering I've already eaten ready-made ones over the years. I managed to make enough for 5 people by the looks of things and the best part is that it can be eaten with either rice or potato wedges. It went great with the salad I made yesterday :D.

INGREDIENTS

Tinned beans of your choice (I had white, red kidney and butter beans)

Runner Beans

Chopped tomatoes

Garlic

Cooking oil (of your choice)

Lots of different herbs and spices, chili is essential

Step 1: Chop up 3/4 cloves of garlic into small chunky 'cubes'. Start boiling or steaming the runner beans, depending on how crunchy you want them to be.

Step 2: Heat up the frying pan on moderate heat, glazed with oil, and pour in garlic.

Step 3: Open and drain the tins of beans. If they are not completely drained, don't worry. Add the beans to the pan once it is warmed and stir frequently.

Step 4: Between the stirring, add in the various spices. I used plenty of mixed ground pepper and enough chili. Add the runner beans to the frying pan (not with the boiled water they were in/on top of).

Step 5: Once everything has been mixed and heated, turn the heat up higher and pour in the chopped tomatoes (canned or fresh, doesn't matter). Stir the mixture then leave to sizzle. Add more chili if you wish, though personally I added oregano at this point.

Step 6: The smell test should be enough to tell you when to serve it; if not, taste. Can be served with either rice, potato wedges, chips, tortilla chips, with or without salad.

Recipe?: Salad

I don't think I'll file this one under recipes since, well, this one is rather lazy and uncomplicated. I had 4 key components: pre-packed salad mix (you know, the typical lettuce, spinach and carrot bits pack), radishes, an onion and Italian salad dressing. I mixed the salad mix with sliced-and-diced onion and 'quartered' radishes. The complicated bit was the salad dressing.

I went into the supermarket thinking I could find a small bottle of the stuff, you know, like in Britain. But no, this is Czech. Here you buy a powder sachet of 10g, then mix it with some olive oil and water. I have to say, it brought excellent results. The only trouble was that I had too little. I had a third of a bowl compared to a large tupperware container of salad. I managed to get most of the salad glazed but next time I think I'll buy 2 sachets, or 3 if I want the salad drenched. Or maybe I'll just buy balsamic vinegar and make up my own damn dressing.

Ah well, could be worse. At least I have enough salad to last a week.

As for why I wanted a salad? It was towards the end of last week that I got a hard reminder of how few greens I was eating. That is one of the traits/stereotypes of a non-meat eater: eating lots of salad. Although the main reason for that is simply due to many places not offering vegetarian main meals, so salad is the safe option/refuge food. But I'm digressing. I had lunch with a colleague, who had brought in the epitome of a European 'good meal': meat (chicken), boiled potatoes and a salad. And I don't mean a decorative garnish, which is usually a bland side of lettuce and tomato and is something no one ever eats. This salad had been properly prepared, with diced onion, mixed lettuce and properly covered in salad dressing. It made my mouth water and he let me try some. How yummy.

Piroggi!!!

Piroggi are dumplings that are typically eaten in much of the Slavic-speaking world. They can either be sweet, with a jam filling, or savoury, with a meat and/or veg filling, which is actually more common.

If you're wondering why I'm talking about this, it's because a Polish coworker brought in some piroggi for lunch. They were freshly cooked by his mother, and he was willing to offer some. They were very hot, but my God, so yummy!

The filling was cabbage and mushroom. Both myself and another coworker demanded the recipe. Once I have it, I will submit it here.

Recipe: Basic Rice Meal

I can't believe I haven't actually cooked this during my lenttide yet, it's the easiest thing and what I cook the most often. The key elements are: 1) rice (basmati is my favourite) 2) cooking sauce and 3) anything you want in the stir-fry. My favourite cooking sauces to use include teriyaki, black bean and hoi sin. When using hoi sin, I love to include sweet pepper. For some reason these very Asian (influenced) sauces aren't that easy to find in the Czech Republic, despite Uncle Ben's jars being a common feature. For some reason, the biggest range of exotic food is Mexican. Anyway, back to what I was talking about: the sauce I use most frequently here is 'Provences' sauce. The major ingredients are tomatoes, courgettes aka. zucchinis and herbs de provences. I do seem to have become rather enamoured with that herb.

On with the recipe!

INGREDIENTS

Cooking sauce ('provensalska' in this case)

Rice (basmati in this case)

Cooking oil (doesn't matter which)

Potatoes

Carrot(s)

Onion

White kidney beans

Garlic (2 cloves in this case)

Ground Pepper, Chili if you feel like adding it

Step 0: Peel the potatoes if you feel like it. Carrots too I guess. If the potato skin is smooth and clean, like on salad potatoes, I don't bother peeling.

Step 1: Get the rice boiling and keep half an eye on it. The rice will be done before the main dish, so once it is or nearly done, cut off the heat to the rice and let it stand. Rice can stay hot for a very long time when covered.

Step 2: Chop up the hard vegetables into cubic chunks and warm them in the frying pan. The heat should be just above moderate.

Step 3: Open the tin of beans and drain. What I normally do is have the tin lid only opened 3/4 of the way, then hold it down as I pour out the liquid.

Step 4: Stir the vegetables and add the pepper. Once they are sizzling immediately after a stir, turn down the heat. Pour in the beans a minute or two later.

Step 5: Chop up the garlic and onion. The onion should be quartered, then each quartered segment chopped. Then separate the layers. This makes sure the onion pieces are crunchy when you eat them.

Step 6: After a couple of stirs with the beans, add more pepper if you wish, then pour in the onion and garlic. A couple more minutes of sizzling and stirring will follow.

Step 7: The rice is likely to be ready by this point, so cut the heat. Pour into the frying pan the cooking sauce. It will only need a few minutes to heat up, so stir regularly and then serve. As always, taste test to insure its readiness.