What do you do with a veggie student when the scurvy shops are shut over a bank holiday?

Best to start with some inspirational music: the sun is shining how about a bit of 60/70s drug induced mayhem yeah Kevin Ayers, the Byrds, Van der Graaf Generator, Small Faces, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane that sort of vibe is good with a bit of metal for good measure.

Anyway this recipe comes in two parts the sauce and the main dish.

For the main dish I had a pack of that mushroom protein stuff called Quorn, (but you could use chicken or shredded beef if you have to eat animals)

First thing to do is make a marinade so after opening a nice bottle of Abbot Ale, full of malty goodness (I've often wondered what is the nature of goodness with regard to food, but then life is really too short for all that), I sloshed a load of soy sauce in a dish with some chopped chilis (I think I used three) an inch of chopped ginger root, half a head of chopped garlic before I realised that I had no sherry in the house to finish it off, you could use sugar and water if you need to but I think that is really too desperate, fortunatly I had some Spanish brandy (which is matured in Sherry casks after all) so I sloshed about a glass of it into the marinade and then the same into me (had to be sure it tasted right), then bunged the Quorn in it to soak for about an hour.

Next the satay sauce dead easy this, half a jar of crunchy Peanut butter, juice of a lime, a tiny bit of Chili oil (I used some from a jar of Mr Naga's chili paste I got at our local farmers market) and enough water to make it into a loose paste, just stir it over a low heat, ready in just minutes

For the main dish fry one or two onions and some garlic with some Chinese five spice seasoning till the onions soften, add a punnet of chopped mushrooms with a dash of soy to help the juice come out then tip in the quorn with the marinade and wallop up the heat to boil most of the liquid away.

This was served on a bed of basmati rice with the peanut sauce on the side of the plate to dip the quorn chunks in.

We had this for lunch with a bottle of Cava in the garden lovely.