Vegan MoFo 3.2: Slow Cooked Tempeh, Roasted Red Pepper and Chanterelles over Brown Rice

Much to my surprise I actually ended up using tempeh in our dinner tonight as I mentioned in the earlier post. This was a bit of shock since I typically can’t plan our meals more than a few minutes ahead. Since the weather has turned cool here I wanted something for dinner that was comfort food. This dish was perfect for a cool evening. Here is what I made:

Slow Cooked Tempeh, Roasted Red Pepper and Chanterelles over Brown Rice
Serves 6

Ingredients:

2 medium or 1 large yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced (will be approximately 2 cups)
6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
4 cups fresh or 28 ounces canned peeled diced tomatoes
4 roasted red peppers, cut into strips
12 ounces beer (or you can substitute white wine, veg stock or water)
2 tablespoon paprika
1 ½ teaspoon dill weed (dried)
1 teaspoon caraway seed
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
8 ounces tempeh, cut into small cubes (I used organic three grain with millet, brown rice and barley)
½ ounce dried chanterelle mushrooms, soaked in 3 cups of water and drained (soaking liquid reserved to add to braising liquid)
½ cup raw cashews
¼ cup dry oatmeal
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, or to taste
2 stalks fresh dill (about 2 tablespoons finely diced)
1 ½ cups brown basmati rice
3 cups water

Directions:

Combine the onions, garlic, roasted red peppers, tomatoes, beer, paprika, dill, caraway, dry mustard, black pepper, tempeh, chanterelles, and the strained soaking liquid from the chanterelles and simmer for at least 30 minutes though longer is fine.

While the veggies and tempeh are simmering cook the brown rice.

When you are almost ready to serve place the raw cashews in your blender with the dry oatmeal. Using a ladle remove at least 2 cups of liquid from the simmering pot and add that to the blender. Process the cashews and oats until smooth. I used a Vitamix for this and it processes the nuts and oats quickly. Pour the cashew and oat mixture into the simmering pot and stir to combine.

Now it is time to taste the mixture and see if you think it needs the red wine vinegar to bring a little spark to the flavor. I added a tablespoon of red wine vinegar. The vinegar does similar things that salt would do to a dish but without the deleterious health impact.

Nutritional Information (for 1/6th of the recipe):

Amount Per Serving
Calories 387.44
Calories From Fat (21%) - 81.28

Total Fat - 9.71g
Saturated Fat - 1.86g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 27.75mg
Potassium - 824.61mg
Total Carbohydrates - 60.31g
Fiber - 6.03g
Sugar - 6.62g
Protein - 15.32g

Comments:

This dish screams comfort food to me. It tastes much richer than it actually is. The flavor is mild yet complex. The sauce is creamy without being fatty. I think this is the perfect cold weather dish. If you are worried about this tasting like beer it doesn’t. The beer gives the dish a very mild background flavor that my husband was unable to detect what it was. Speaking of beer since some portion of the alcohol evaporated during cooking the calorie count is overstated by that.

Signing out:

We need to get our rest tonight since Binky (aka Nicco) is going to the vet early tomorrow to have his dental work and Dan is flying to Norfolk for the day. Hopefully taking the dry cat food up tonight doesn’t result in an insurrection this evening. Our children tend to get very vocal when their food bowl is low so I can’t imagine what they will do with it missing. Wish up luck getting some rest this evening.

I hope everyone is having a good Wednesday. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Tempeh, Mushrooms and Veggies in Tomato Cashew Curry

Thursday … Not my Favorite Day this Week

Getting up at 4:45 in the morning is not on my list of fun things to do. I am not a morning person but this was ridiculous. The sun came up almost 2 hours after I got up. The full moon was beautiful this morning but I wasn’t actually conscious enough to really enjoy it. I tried to take some pictures of it but none of them were “perfect”.

After Dan left for the airport to make his 6:50am flight to Florida I tried to start my day. Heavy emphasis on tried. I got on the scale to find out the damage from so much eating out and it went up 2.4 pounds in one day. Needless to say I got on twice to confirm this since I knew there was no way I overate by 8,400 calories yesterday (3,500 times 2.4). Heck that is about what I eat in a week.

Even though I know the increase on the scale was probably water weight due to consuming more sodium than usual (since my normal is almost none)l it didn’t exactly give me an appetite for breakfast this morning. Also I knew I wasn’t going to be very active (based on the yawning that I have been doing all day) so I waited until mid-day to grab some lunch and skipped breakfast today. I was also just too tired to get myself anything beyond water and iced green tea.

Lunch was one of my huge salads which consisted of: 1 head of romaine, ¼ cup salsa, ½ cucumber thinly sliced, ½ carrot thinly sliced, 4 Roma tomatoes and a good sized dollop of cheezy white bean dip. I am really loving the cheezy white bean. This is going to be making regular appearances at my house. Who knows it may become as popular as the baked falafel. ;-)

I finally ended up getting a nap in that I intended to be an hour or an hour and half and it ended up being 3 hours. Clearly I was physically exhausted this morning.

For my afternoon snack I had a banana and 6 walnut halves. As always I added the nuts to make certain that I absorb any fat soluble vitamins and to make the snack more satisfying.

To accompany the banana I decided a cup of frozen grapes would be good. As you probably noticed I eat a lot of frozen grapes.

Dan called as he was getting to the airport to find out if the flight was on time since he was running later than he wanted and of course it was on time. However he got to the gate with a few minutes to spare so everything was good on that front. I am happy to have my hubby back home. Even though he was only gone today like being downtown it still seemed worse since I knew he was thousands of miles away. I like having him close by I suppose. ;-)

Once I found out Dan didn’t have dinner before getting on the plane I knew I needed to have something ready for him to eat once he got home. I shifted into chef mode and started thinking about what would be good for him tonight. There was a piece of tempeh in the refrigerator that I thought would be nice to use. Here is what I made tonight:

Tempeh, Mushrooms and Veggies in Tomato Cashew Curry
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 large yellow onions, cut into bite sized chunks (allow to stand 10 minutes before heating)
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced (allow to stand 10 minutes before heating)
1 inch fresh ginger, finely minced or grated
4 carrots, cut into bite sized chunks
approximately 3 cups fresh tomatoes, pureed
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
1 ½ teaspoon black mustard seed
¼ teaspoon cardamom powder
1 pinch ajowan seeds or substitute thyme the flavor is very similar
1 pinch red pepper flakes
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
8 ounces three grain tempeh cut into small bite sized pieces
¼ pound fresh shitake mushrooms (stems removed), cut into bites sized pieces
zest of 1 lime
½ cup raw cashews pureed with the juice of one lime and water enough to make it process
cooked grain to serve as the bed for the dish (I used brown basmati)

Directions:

Combine the onions, garlic, ginger, carrots, tomato puree and spices and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the tempeh and mushrooms and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the lime zest to pan with the veggies. Process the cashews and lime juice, add enough water so that you get a smooth puree. Add the cashew crème to the pan and stir to thoroughly combine. Simmer until everything is heated through.

Serve over a cooked grain or baked sweet potatoes. If desired garnish the dish with sliced almonds, cilantro or crispy onions. Tonight’s dish had a few sliced almonds for crunch.

Nutritional Information (not including the grain or garnish):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 308.08
Calories From Fat (34%) - 105.27

Total Fat - 12.57g
Saturated Fat - 2.36g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 76.33mg
Potassium - 1135.96mg
Total Carbohydrates - 39.24g
Fiber-  7.58g
Sugar - 13.03g
Protein - 16.94g

Comments:

This is a quick dinner but one with nice Indian flavor. I make variations of this dish quite often because we like it so much.  I am sure this isn't traditional since I am Italian, not Indian, but we like the flavors so it works for us.

To accompany the curried dish we had a green salad on the side that consisted of romaine, diced Roma tomato, thinly sliced cucumber and carrot, topped with marinated mushrooms and roasted red peppers.

Signing out:

That is going to be if for me today. I must say it feels good to be caught up on my posts. Tomorrow will be my usual whirlwind of errands and checking on the parents. However with a little luck there will be time to spend in the kitchen tomorrow afternoon. I hope you had a great Thursday and have fun plans for the weekend. Talk to you again tomorrow.

Lightly Smoky Baked Tempeh

Since the block of tempeh I defrosted a few days ago was two pounds I knew I had to come up with different recipe for the second pound of tempeh. ;-) I thought tempeh would be great to have on hand this week. Instead of glazing the tempeh I decided to try adding subtle flavor by poaching. This was an idea Heather suggested on her blog and thought why not give it a try. So I did. Here is what I used:


Lightly Smoky Baked Tempeh
Serves 4 as a main dish or 8 as a salad topping

Ingredients:

1 pound of tempeh cut into 4 pieces
3 cups of water
1 tablespoon tomato paste
½ teaspoon liquid smoke
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon dehydrated minced onion
¼ teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

Combine the water, tomato paste, liquid smoke, red wine vinegar, dried onions and garlic powder and bring to a simmer. Add the tempeh and simmer for 15 minutes (or so) to add flavor. I kept the pan covered while simmering and gently flipped the tempeh halfway through cooking.

Remove the tempeh from the poaching liquid and bake or sear in a well seasoned cast iron skillet. I baked mine on 350 degrees until it was lightly brown (about 40 minutes)

Nutritional information (assumes 4 servings):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 227.44
Calories From Fat (45%) - 102.89

Total Fat - 12.29g
Saturated Fat - 2.53g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 47.16mg
Potassium - 530.92mg
Total Carbohydrates - 12.61g
Fiber - 0.31g
Sugar - 1.01g
Protein - 21.35g

Comments:

The poached tempeh is lightly smoky and subtly flavored. It would work well on any sort of salad. You could add additional flavor with a glaze but since I knew I would be using it on different salads I wanted the overall flavor to be subtle.

I like the subtle smokiness of this tempeh. Next time I may add a little Worcestershire and nutritional yeast to add a bit more umami. However I think this recipe would work with many flavors so I will being keeping the poaching liquid ingredients in mind the next time I make tempeh.

Making your own tempeh:

Have any of you made your own tempeh? I think that is next on my agenda. I was looking at the directions and it doesn’t seem too difficult only time consuming. If you have made tempeh I would like to know a few things. Does it taste different and/or better? Was the starter easy to find? Did you enjoy it enough to make it again? Thanks ahead of time for sharing your experiences with making tempeh.

Food since last post:

Knowing it was going to be a late dinner (like usual) I grabbed a bowl of watermelon chunks around 5 pm. I really love melons and miss them when they are out of season. We were lucky to get some nice organic ones from our CSA the last few weeks.

I also had a few bites of the caponata when I was making it, quality control you know. ;-)

Dinner tonight was a simple green salad topped with fat free hummus and caponata. This is very much like our chef friend Ian’s Middle Eastern plate only over salad instead of on whole wheat pita crisps.

This morning for breakfast I decided to make smoothies since the humidity was in the mid 90’s at 6am. Today I made myself a smoothie with 1/3 cup oats (ground into flour first), 1 pitted peach, 1 frozen banana, 2 collard leaves, 1 cup spinach, 1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds, 2 tablespoons raw sesame seeds, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and ginger and 1 cup of water and 8 ice cubes. The green color is probably off putting to some but it tastes more like fruit than anything else. The collards do add more “green taste” than the spinach. But they also add considerable nutrition which is more important to me. Since I make fresh juice mostly for Dan I try to add collards where ever I can into my food.

Speaking of juice I wanted to show you the mountain of produce that goes into Dan’s juice every morning. The tray is a half sheet pan if that gives you perspective. It includes: 4 collard leaves, 1 bunch Italian dandelion greens, 10 carrots, 3 apples, 1 beet, 1 inch ginger root, 1 lemon and 3 stalks of celery. It starts as this

And ends as this.

As I have mentioned before I do this for the nutrition. My plan is to flood Dan’s body with nutrients to give it everything it needs to keep him healthy. He takes a bottle of this to work every day and drinks it in small doses throughout the day. I also send trail mix to work with him to munch on so he gets enough fat to efficiently absorb the fat soluble vitamins. Since my food can be very low in fat the trail mix is an insurance policy for the fat soluble vitamins.

If you are thinking of buying a juicer you should know that it does take a while to clean, cut up and juice all the veggies and fruit. I have been doing this for months and the quickest I can make juice in the morning is 30 minutes. Of course I should also tell you that I am not and never have been a morning person. If you are maybe you can make juicer more quickly than I can. ;-)

Lunch today was another one of my enormous salads. This one contained a 1 head of shredded romaine, caponata, fat free hummus, cucumber, ½ serving of smoky tempeh, a few pine nuts (since I intentionally left them out of the caponata) and a sprinkle of paprika (for a bit of extra vitamin C). It was a very filing and tasty lunch.

Other things since my last post:

Dan ran to Costco last night after work to pick up a TV cabinet we saw in the Costco magazine. We needed something to go under the new flat screen in the family room and we both liked this one. Since it is still in the back of the car here is the pic of the model from the Costco floor. It should look nice and comes with a handy “cat shelf” on the bottom. I know the felines are going to claim that space for their own as soon as the piece of furniture comes into the house. I may have Dan cut a piece of plywood to cover the bottom which I can upholster for the felines knowing they insist on sitting there. At least that will keep cat toes from scratching the surface.

What’s the matter with …..:

Is it just me or does anyone else notices a down tone in the blogosphere over the last month or so? I mention this because it is the reason I haven’t started my “What’s the matter with….” posts yet. They weren’t quite upbeat enough to suit me. I suppose this means I need to work on rewriting them. So far I have substantially finished two of the posts but they need to be “happified” (don’t look that up I just made it up). I will try to make one of the posts happy this week so that I can get it posted. ;-)

Now I am wondering if down people notice similar traits in others or if there is a really has been an increase. Hmmmm, something else for me to ponder. For those that are wondering I am still clearly not myself. I have good and bad moments but at least the crying has subsided which I was happy to see go away. I think I am feeling a little better, that or I am getting used to this new me. I prefer to think I am feeling better until the evidence proves otherwise. ;-)

I have found that adding more exercise also seems to help. I wanted to mention this in case it comes in handy for any of you. Additionally I have started to add a couple of tablespoons of dry roasted edamame into my diet each time I have a cup of green tea. Since soy is reported to help with menopausal symptoms I thought the additional soy wouldn’t hurt. That is also the reason the tempeh showed up. I have soy beans soaking now to make soy milk (to add to smoothies). The okara (pulp that is strained from the soy milk) will also become something once the soy beans sprout so I can make milk.

Today:

My day has been busy already and it is only a little after noon. I started my morning with exercise and some gardening. My dad had appointments earlier so I needed to check in on my mom since she was alone. Now I need to get my behind into gear and get some things done around here.

I packed the end of the farmers’ market lentil and vegetable soup in Dan’s lunch today so I need to make soup and work on more dehydrated tomatoes. Of course I should also come up with something for dinner.

I have almost finished reading "Complete Book of Raw Food". I hope to have that review up in the next few days.

On that note I am going to get moving and get a few of those items on my to-do list crossed off. I hope all of you are having a great Tuesday.