TVP

TVP- Textured Vegetable Protein, used as a meat extender or replacer.

I have waited a while to make this post because I wanted to try out multiple ways of cooking the TVP and make suggestions on how to best use this product, so I knew it would be a time intensive post.

I was most interested in the TVP of all the products available at Mother Earth Products. I have not used all of the different products yet, so I will give a review and suggestions for cooking for the ones that I have used.

General TVP review - You open the bag and it smells like the meat it is supposed to be.  Chicken smells like chicken.  Bacon smelled like bacon and so on and so forth.  I was skeptical of how I would like this and it was reassuring that it at least smelled like what it was replacing!

The chunks are a little smaller than the pieces I would usually cut my meat into, but I am not picky about things like that so, although it is a general downside, it isn't one for me.

The bits are the small ground beef size with none of the big chunks of ground beef you get when pan cooking it without breaking it apart well.

For me, I learned that once I poured out what I thought the dish would need, I had to put some back.  A little goes a long way!  I was really surprised by this and I don't know why.  I guess I never measured the amount of cooked meat I was putting into my dishes and you also have to know that the TVP is more compact in measuring than cooked meat.

Now onto more specifics...

Chicken Chunks - I used this in a chicken Fettuccine Alfredo dish.  The dish turned out wonderfully.  I added the chicken when I would normally add the cooked chicken because I wanted to make the chunks pretty soft and I tested one chunk with water before cooking to see how it held up.  There was a slight smoky flavor to the chicken....it is hard to describe, but it was good.  To me, it didn't take away from the total taste of the dish, it added to it.

Taco Mix - Endrit and I aren't big taco fans, so we never have made tacos out of this specifically.  We love to do a beans, rice, and taco meat dish with salsa.  In the dish, we usually add extra taco seasoning anyways (we don't buy the packets of seasoning just bulk), so it wasn't surprising that we added just a bit more seasoning to the dish after it was made the first time.  If you like the seasoning of a regular packet of taco mix, it is awesome!  We use the TVP as a replacer with this dish.  There is no need to add meat in because the TVP is amazing by itself!  We love it.  Marsi loves it, even the cats have eaten it!

Beef Bits - I will be honest, the first time I made a dish with this, I was less than impressed.  I added it in the same time I would add in regular ground beef and it lost all texture and turned into a big globby mess.  But, wanting to make it work and knowing how incredibly good the other TVP had been, I decided to experiment.  Since the taco mix TVP didn't boil in water and kept its texture, I decided to make the dish first and add in the TVP beef bits at the very end of the cooking.  It made all the difference in the world!  It was the TVP taste and texture I came to know from Mother Earth Products!  I had all faith in the product and was really glad that just changing the cooking routine made it work out well.  We also use this as a meat replacer and a little goes a long way with this as well!

Bacon Bits - Let me not drool on the keyboard as I write this.  SOOOOOO good!!!  I opened the bag and it was bacon.  I felt like the dog in the beggin' strips commercial!  I am not one for strips of bacon so bits are all I need.  I made an omelet, wonderful. Salad topper, wonderful.  Anytime you ever use bacon bits, wonderful!  I don't think I will buy meat bacon ever again.  I am completely sold on TVP bacon bits!!!

Ham Chiplets, Sausage Bits, and Pepperoni Bits - Ditto to everything I have said about bacon bits.  I will use these instead of the meat any day hands down!

The next thing I will try are the burger mixes.  I am interested to see how those are.  I will try them both as an extender and a replacer instead of just a replacer to see the difference in the burgers.  All in all, I am EXTREMELY impressed with the TVP products from Mother Earth Products.