Recipe 1: Baja Style Grilled Tempeh Tacos

Monday, August 17. Day 1. My first new dish that I probably would not have made were it not for the new found inspiration from seeing Julie and Julia.

This was a great example of a recipe that I would have passed over out of the extensive list of ingredients. And it also calls for beer. At the time I thought, why would I buy a 6-pack of beer just so I could make a recipe. But then I realized that we could just keep the extra beer in the back of the fridge until the next recipe that calls for it (right!). Luckily, we had a dinner party the week before and had some leftover beer some friends brought.

The recipe says 80 minutes of cooking time, lots of it inactive. Well either I'm too slow (which I know is not true as I'm quite a fast-paced cooker) or too unorganized, because I felt pretty active for most of those 80 minutes.

This was quite a messy dish to make, although I think I still need to learn better logistics in this regard. The end result, however, was very tasty.

The most exciting thing was when first started making the recipe and I threw the chopped garlic in with the beer. It started to fizzle. I thought, how exciting. I never knew garlic would make beer sizzle. Then again, why would I?

Now for the tips, adjustments, workarounds and money savers.

One, it calls for picked jalapenos. Now, I don't know about where you live, but here in Seattle, every damn thing is so expensive, including pickled jalapenos. So, I decided to use fresh, which I would have preferred anyway for the context of the dish. Also, I used canola or olive oil in place of grapeseed or avocado oil in the crema. I can't say I've actually used those oils, so I don't know how much of a difference they'd make, but I suspect little, if any, and they're a hell of a lot more expensive.

I also added in a teaspoon of sugar to the taco slaw. I just like things a little sweeter, which will become obvious in time. I have to say, the slaw was uniquely tasty. The first thing I thought when I took a bite was shrimp cocktail sauce. I don't eat shrimp, but I used to love that sauce.

When marinading the tofu, a wide dish that is deep enough is very helpful. My dish was almost wide enough, but I had to put some strips of tofu on top of the others. I also added salt to the water used for boiling the tempeh. You'll also come to find out I like my salt, too. I'm not buying all that high blood pressure crap. Just give me my salt and shut up.

As for 3/4 cup of soy yogurt, that's the size of most individual yogurt containers (6 oz), so if that's the size you buy, don't waste your time or dirty a measuring cup for this.

As for time savers, don't bother with grilling the tempeh. Just fry it. I will never use our grill pan again. I mean, sure, I like grill marks as much as the next person, but not for an extra 10 minutes of scrubbing. That tempeh gets wrapped into a corn tortilla and eaten too fast anyway.

You can also skip the step of warming your oven to keep the tempeh warm between rounds. We just popped it in the microwave for 20 seconds instead. Why waste all that energy and use yet another pan?

This one was a winner in our book.

This recipe is on page 96 of Veganomicon.