First things first. I made this dish with the Sauteed Collards (pg 106) and the Cheater Baked Beans (page 122). And the surprising star of this dish was definitely the sauteed collards! More on that in a minute.
Overall this was a great meal. Each part was delicious. And surprisingly not too difficult to prepare and cook considering it was three different dishes. The price was maybe a tad more than I like to spend on a home-cooked meal (roughly around $10) but certaily reasonable.
This meal included two ingredients I had never cooked with before: molasses (seriously?) and liquid smoke. And let me say that after eating this dish I posted "I heart liquid smoke" on my Facebook status.
The tempeh was tender and delicious. But as I said, the star was the collards. The marinade used for the tempeh was the same one used in preparing the collards, but whoa did those collards really soak that stuff up! They absorbed every ounce of flavor from that marinade, I think. The flavor was a teriffic blend of sweet and salty with the extra boost of smokiness from the liquid smoke. Ah-ma-zing. The best part was the Bryan was looking forward to that dish the least of the three, but in the end liked it the best.
The beans were good, too. They had a bit more of a "tomatoey" flavor than I prefer, but we still liked them. We actually like our baked beans a bit more on the sweeter side, too. Sometime I'll have to post the recipe for this "Gourment Baked Beans" recipe we got from Bryan's mom. I could live off those things (okay, that and those crutons for the Caesar Salad). They're sticky, sweet, salty and have a deep flavor.
This recipe is on page 130 of Veganomicon.
