5.31.09 | tempeh salad

i couldn't go to sleep sunday night which probably had a lot to do with all the earl grey i had during the day and our late dinner. i decided to put my restlessness to good use and make some lunch for steve to take to work the next day. after checking out what i had in the fridge and doing a bit of research online, i came across an easy recipe for tempeh salad.

tempeh salad (recipe available at vegweb.com)
i love the fact that you can pretty much throw in whatever you have available in your fridge and still get great results. i ended up with the following mix of ingredients:

1 - 8 oz package of tempeh (steamed for 15 min)
1/2 cup of finely diced onion
1/2 cup of finely diced green, yellow and red bell pepper (trader joe's melange a trois frozen strips)
1/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons of braggs liquid aminos
1/2 teaspoon pressed garlic
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon dry dill weed
2 teaspoons of dried parsley (was too scared to go into my backyard and pick fresh parsley from the garden at night!)
tons of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup of vegan mayo

i mixed everything up in a bowl then put a bit of salad over some romaine lettuce on multi-grain bread....just like a tuna salad sandwich!! i like to use fresh organic veggies in my recipes, but i always have some frozen staples from trader joe's in stock for last minute meals such as this. can't wait to try this again...maybe next time i'll make some vegan chicken curry salad.

5.29.09 | baja-style grilled tempeh tacos

i've been meaning to experiment more with tempeh, and when i came across a coupon I decided it was time to stock up and try this recipe from veganomicon.

baja-style grilled tempeh tacos (veganomicon)
the preparation started the night before by making the taco slaw and the chile-beer marinade for the tempeh. i settled on dos exuis lager especial for the marinade and substituted cayenne for chili powder.

the next day I prepared the lime crema with wild wood organic unsweetened plain probiotic soyogurt and fried my marinated tempeh pieces in some peanut oil. the plastic reusable wild wood container was the perfect size for storing and chilling the lime crema in the fridge. While the recipe instructions say to fry the tempeh prior to cutting into thin slices, I found that slicing prior to frying resulted in tastier individual pieces. steve and i heated some corn tortillas and set up our assembly line...slaw, tempeh and crema.

the tacos were good, but not great. the stars of the recipe are definitely the marinade and the lime crema. i added some diced avocado salad which rounded out the tacos really well, but i found the slaw to be too sour from the vinegar. i also missed the beer-battered filling from typical baja fish tacos. i'm thinking that some firm tofu, marinated in the same mixture and beer-battered, would produce better and tastier results, although not as healthy : /. i will try to experiment with this some more and hopefully come up with a better recipe.

5.23.09 | sushi night

after a nice lunch in echo park, Steve and I made our way to little tokyo market place to get all the goods for our japanese dinner.

baby mixed greens with miso tahini dressing (veganomicon)

because i use low-sodium miso paste, i decided to add some soy sauce to-taste and a bit of lemon juice to add depth to the dressing. it was so good and easy to make. we poured the dressing over some baby mixed greens from trader joe's, but i imagine that it would also be great as a dip with crudités.

steamed asari (manila) clams (recipe available at rasa malaysia)

i had previously made this recipe without the mirin and really enjoyed it. this time i decided to follow the recipe and was really disappointed at how sweet the broth turned out. i will definitely be sticking to just sake in the future. i find that nigori sake adds just the right amount of sweetness to compliment the savory clams.

spicy tempeh rolls (recipe available at the post punk kitchen)

i luckily already had some sushi rice and tempeh at home, so we just picked up a few ingredients and a couple of bamboo rolling mats at a japanese discount store. the seasoned rice vinegar from trader joe's worked out perfectly for the rice and didn't require adding the additional sugar the recipe called for. we chopped up our scallions into the filling and layered lots of avocado on top...yum!! We made a second roll with some bbq unagi sauce, tempeh and avocado...our version of a caterpillar roll. we didn't bother roasting the nori sheets for both rolls and they turned out just fine. in lieu of wasabi, we added chili oil to our soy sauce for dipping.

the rolls turned out surprisingly well for being our first attempt at sushi. they were a bit on the big side and had a bit too much rice...but I think that can definitely be perfected with more practice. the tempeh I had at home had flax seeds in it which i thought overpowered the other flavors, so i think the plain variety would work best. i would definitely like to play around some more with the fillings and perhaps incorporate tempura in the future....the possibilities are endless!!!