Tag: alternate

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Erica’s “chicken” Pie, vegan

pie crust

When I stayed with Erica recently she made up this recipe which I am unashamedly stealing. To be fair this is just what I remember her doing. Her pie was better, but this was still delicious.

NB this pie is vegan. The chicken is a New Zealand product.  Sunfed Chicken is made from pea protein and has a good texture which makes it work well as “chicken” in this pie. It’s not highly flavoured a bit like chicken it works well with a variety of dishes.

A tip Erica gave me was to not move the chicken pieces round a lot when frying, unless you are going for a mince effect. So I fry on a medium heat for 3-5 minutes a side and try to flipping it over only once.

Ingredients

  • 2 sheets vegan puff pastry (I used Homebrand)
  • 1 packet Sunfed chicken pieces
  • 3 tablespoons of jam (apricot or cranberry works well)
  • 100 gm Vegan cheese slices (I used angel foods cheddar)
  • CHEESE SAUCE
  • 4 tablespoons margarin (I used olivano)
  • 4 tablespoons flour
  • 1 tablespoon cornflour
  • 600 ml oat milk (or milk of your choice)
  • 1/2 Cup nutritional yeast
  • 2 teaspoons dijion mustard
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 230 C.
  2. Fry chicken substitute 3-5 minutes a side
  3. Make up cheese sauce, see instructions below, but basically a flavoured white sauce.
  4. Oil your pie dish and lightly dust with flour and place in you bottom layer of pastry pressing gently to fit the sides. Trim the edges and bake blind for 12 minutes.
  5. Place the fried “chicken”pieces in the pie dish on top the prebaked pastry.
  6. Pour the mock cheese sauce over the chicken piece, then place mock cheese slices on top, then drop dabs of jam even over, it should no cover the whole layer but be dots here and there.
  7. Put pastry on top the lt and trim edges, make decorative slices in the pastry to let out steam and if you like decorate with left over pieces of pastry.
  8. Bake for 15.20 minutes until the top is nicely brown.
  9. CHEESE SAUCE
  10. Melt margarine in a pot, or use equivalent volume of oil.
  11. Take off heat and stir in flours returning to heat until it clumps.
  12. Take pot off heat again and add milk little by little, returning to heat when required. Add as much milk as required to make a pourable sauce. Cook until the flour in the sauce is no longer gritty or raw tasting.
  13. Add in remaining ingredients till the sauce tastes good to you.
Cuisine: Vegan, Vegetarian, pie, western, European | Recipe Type: main

 

If you are a vegetarian you could use real cheese for making the sauce or for the slices of cheese in the pie. But note that using nutritional yeast is a cost effective way of making the sauce and it tastes quite cheesy if you get the right nutritional yeast.

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Natural ways to increase serotnin in your brain

Depression and other ailments have been treated by artificially raising serotonin in the brain ie by using drugs. However, latest research shows that there are a number of alternate methods for doing the same thing.

The first way is commonly used for SAD (seasonal depression) but is now being used for other forms of depression as well. Bright light, raises the serotonin in the brain and the sun is the best source of bright light. Until recent times we humans were outside, hunting or farming for a great deal of the time and this is thought to have contributed to the lower rates of depression in these times.

Another natural agent which raises serotonin has been found to be exercise. This is especially so when you exercise to the stage of fatigue. So I am guessing a good brisk walk on a hilly path would be better than a light stroll around the shops.

Tryptophan also seems to increase the brains level of serotonin. Tryptophan is an amino acid and is found naturally in a number of protein foods. Not all foods provide tryptophan that makes it to the brain however and there is thought that certain foods should be bred to provide more. In other words we should not so much think of making lots of food but growing healthier food.

The research even suggests that we have inately choosen varieties of food or cooking methods in the past that increase the available tryptophan. For example wild chick peas have less available tryptophan than cultivated varieties. Corn in South america was cooked wth an alkalai which enable more tryptophan to be absorbed by the brain, but this practice did not follow corn as it moved out of south america.

The research suggests that we should spend more time looking at natural solutions rather than pharmacueical solutions and we could have a happier healthier population.

 

Original source: How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs by Simon N. Young