Vegan French Toast and making tempeh

I used the French Toast recipe from Power Plates by Gena Hamshaw of the Full Helping blog. The toast has a similar texture to egg based French toast by using non-dairy milk, chickpea flour, cornstarch, and nutritional yeast.

My sister bought me the cookbook for my birthday last year and I really really like the recipes in it. Hamshaw is a dietitian and creates well rounded recipes using whole food ingredients. Some of them are a bit involved, but all the recipes that I've tried have been tasty.

For Christmas, my husband bought me a book on fermenting miso, tempeh, natto, and other ferments. We also picked up a bread proofing box for keeping the ferments at the correct temperature (and proofing bread!). We started off with the tempeh recipe. I tried making tempeh in the Instant Pot a few months ago, but it never formed into the cake and I didn't try again. Using 2 cups of soybeans (and laboriously taking off the hulls), we were able to make two tempeh cakes and it is the best tempeh that I have ever had. It is nutty deliciousness and makes me want to actively eat tempeh, rather than "yeah, sure I'll have some tempeh bacon".

We've just been sauteing up slices of the first tempeh cake to taste it without much adornment. For the second one, I'll probably try the tempeh in a Gado Gado salad. When we lived in Philly we loved going to Hardena for Indonesian food and, as expected, they did fantastic things with tempeh that I now want to copy.

Tempeh Sandwich Lunch

Tempeh sandwich
habanero pickles
apricots
strawberries
dates
carrots
sugar snap peas

Tempeh Rice Lunch

Ingredients
Rice
Cilantro
Lime
Tempeh
Onion

Method
Cook rice in rice cooker. After cooking, add chopped cilantro and lime juice.

Cook up a couple of tempeh bacon slices and onions on the stove top.

Notes
Served with kimchi, carrot, avocado, hummus, and blood orange.

Bonus picture of a tea sample I have from Upton. This tea from Indonesia is amazingly tasty. I had everyone smell the tea after I opened it. Too bad I can only have a 1/2 cup a day due to my caffeine intolerance.

Tempeh Wrap Lunch

Lunch in my new Monbento lunch box. This bento box holds enough food for lunch and either a morning or afternoon snack.

Today's bento includes:
Tempeh, avocado, hummus wrap
carrots
hummus
cucumbers
pineapple
orange
Trader Joe's dark chocolate peanut butter cup



This is what the bento box looks like when it is closed up. Each level has an airtight lid. I like this bento box a lot!

Veggie Noodle Lunch

Ingredients
1 zucchini
1 carrot
3 chard leaves
1 stalk celery
1/4 avocado
1-2 strips of tempeh
peanut sauce (I used Fire on the Mountain Spicy Peanut sauce)

Method
Using a spiralizer, mandolin, or serrated vegetable peeler, make noodles out of the zucchini and carrot. Place into a bowl. Chop up the chard, celery, and avocado into small chunks and add to bowl.

Cook tempeh in a cast iron skillet for about 2-3 minutes per side until browned. Chop into chunks and add to the bowl.

Drizzle everything with peanut sauce.

Add anything else that would taste good raw - bell pepper, cucumber, apple.


Notes
This was super tasty the day when it was freshly made. After the vegetables sat in the peanut sauce over night, the texture became super mushy and not as appetizing. I would eating this quickly after adding the sauce and devour entirely. It is fantastic when it is fresh! If you use pasta noodles instead of just vegetables, I bet the noodles would taste better after sitting overnight in peanut sauce. It was nice to have a dinner consisting of mostly vegetables. Winter time is coming to a close!

The small dip container holds toasted onion hummus for the carrots and celery.

Biscuits and Tempeh Gravy

I have talked about tempeh gravy previously, on my old blog, but I made some biscuits and gravy this weekend, so I thought I would share.




Ingredients
Drop Biscuits Adapted from Table for Two
1 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup coconut creamer
1.5 T olive oil

Tempeh Crumbles Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance
4 oz tempeh
1 T soy sauce/tamari
1 t better than boullion paste
1 T maple syrup
1 T olive oil
1 t fennel seeds
1 t coriander seeds
2 t dry sage
2 t dry basil
2 t chipotle powder

Gravy
1 T olive oil
1 T flour
1 C water

Method
Drop Biscuits
Preheat oven to 425F. Mix together the dry ingredients. Separately, mix together the wet ingredients. Add the wet to the dry and mix briefly to just combine. Do not over mix.

On a greased sheet, drop 6 equal portions of biscuits (about 1/4 cup each). Cook for 12 - 15 minutes until brown. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Tempeh Crumbles
Crumble tempeh in a small sauce pan. Top with all the other ingredients and add enough water to just cover the tempeh. Turn the heat to medium high and allow the mixture to boil. Stir occasionally, so the tempeh doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Continue to simmer until the liquid is mostly absorbed by the tempeh. Remove from heat and set aside.

Gravy
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a sauce pan. When it is hot, add the flour and whisk until the flour has absorbed the oil and it has cooked out some of the raw flour flavor. Slowly, and continue whisking, add the liquid to the pan. Turn the heat up high, whisking continuously, until the mixture begins to thicken. Allow to cook to desired thickness. Add the tempeh crumbles to the gravy and stir to combine.

Either leave the biscuits whole or crumble them up on your plate and top with gravy. Serve with grapefruit on the side and garnish with fresh rosemary.

Notes
This was delicious. I make it every so often and the gravy came out super duper well this time. When my husband was done eating his share, he licked his plate clean and started eating off of my plate!

Tempeh Étouffée

Another one for the Slow Cooker Challenge. I don't think that I ever tried real étouffée before, so I have nothing to compare against.



Ingredients
8 oz tempeh
onions
celery
bell pepper
water
thyme
marjoram


Method
In a slow cooker combine chopped onions, celery, and bell pepper. Add enough water to cover and season with your favorite spices. Cook on low for 6 - 8 hours.

Chop the tempeh into 1 inch cubes and brown in a skillet over medium heat. Add to the crock pot for 30 minutes. Serve over rice.

Notes
I still had some rice left over from the Inca Parcels, so I just used that instead of making new rice.

This came out okay. Not amazing. I was very rushed that morning and might not have followed the recipe exactly and maybe that is why it did not come out as good as expected.

My husband has been sick all week, and while I ate this he had some miso soup.

Tempeh Sausage Gravy over potatoes

Since I received a copy of Vegan with a Vengeance, my most made recipe has to be the tempeh sausage crumbles. I love to mix them in gravies or when I want some "meat" texture.



Ingredients
Tempeh Sausage Crumbles
1/2 8 oz package tempeh
soy sauce (not too much, I learned the hard way. Or eliminate it because some is going in the gravy)
olive oil
maple syrup
fennel seed
sage
oregano
marjoram
basil
water to cover

Gravy (Adapted from Vegan Vittles)
1 T cornstarch
1 T soy sauce
3/4 cup water
garlic granules
black pepper
1 T tahini


Method
Tempeh Sausage Crumbles
Crumble up the tempeh in a small saucepan. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the water. Add only enough water to cover the tempeh. Cook on medium heat and allow to simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed/evaporated, about 10 - 15 minutes. Move the tempeh to a bowl while gravy is made.

Gravy
I used the same saucepan as the tempeh so it had some of the spices left over. Add the cornstarch and soy sauce to the pan and whisk to combine. Add the water and any spices, whiskey constantly. Place over medium heat and whisk pretty much continuously until it starts to bubble a little and has thickened. Take off the heat and whisk in the tahini.

Add the tempeh to the gravy. Serve over hash brown potatoes with some avocado and whole wheat bread.

Notes
I put waaaayyy too much soy sauce in this. I added too much to the tempeh when it was simmer and the salty flavor became concentrated. I then added more to the gravy, ugh. Other than that, the flavor was very good and this is one of my favorite ways to enjoy tempeh.

My husband also concurred with the too much salt verdict. He had to separate out the tempeh from the rest of the gravy because it was too much for him. He liked it otherwise.

Baja Style Tempeh Tacos

Another recipe from Veganomicon.

I halved the recipe from the book and I used water instead of beer for the marinade because we didn't have any.




My sister bought me a cast iron wok for my birthday and used that to push down the cabbage slaw. It is coming in handy, already! I need to wait until I move next month to season it before I can start using it.





Notes
We both enjoyed these tacos throughly. When I was cooking the tempeh, I just added all the marinade to the pan and let it cook down. My husband couldn't stop eating that sauce. I look forward to making these again.