Squeaky Bean Cooking Chorizo (style - it's Vegan!) [@NLi10]

The vegan aisle is a treasure trove at the moment, it seems like everyone is trying to get something out before the craze vanishes like it did in the USA.  Fortunately the UK is more likely to accept these things as a lot of religious diets are vegan friendly and vegetarianism has always been pretty big here.  This means I can buy crazy stuff that fills the hole in my diet left by not eating meat much at home, and still not freak out my vegetarian partner.

Well - until you buy something as realistic as this.  This is possibly the first vegan product I've put back on the shell as it's too realistic.  I obviously changed my mind later - but we were looking for picnic food and I noped at that and decided I'd cook with it instead.

This is a bad picture for the ingredients list, but essentially it's bean protein instead of pork derivatives - then all the usual stuff.  The key phrase that made me pick it is 'produced in Spain' - surely they can't let us down?

No way the veggie is trying this... Halloween review comes early - argh my finger!

And it looks reasonably close when chopped up too - its just a suspicious thing to have high quality textured chunks in this stuff from a UK supermarket.

Ate the first bit cold with the potatoes - decent enough.

The second bit found it's way into the warmth of the pie filling and it became absolutely magical. This is just good quality chorizo, no qualifiers required.  This is the happiest I've been with one of these reviews in absolutely ages - this is going in the 'must have in stock' pile. I'd make special trips to Sainsbury's especially for it - but I'm guessing it's everywhere.  You could put this in a recipe and meat lovers would be so happy with it.  I'm already planning a paella, and thinking that I can use this in veggie carbonara.

Except I probably can't - the texture and flavours here are so achingly close to the real thing I'm guessing it'd put off any vegetarians that tried it. 

For me though - as a lapsed vegetarian who now adds a little meat to the side to spice things up - this is absolute perfection.  Hopefully there is a whole range of Squeaky Bean products to try.