Tempeh Shepherdess Pie

This dish should have been named "Thanksgiving in a Dish," or "One Pot Thanksgiving." It had all the flavors of a typical Thanksgiving meal in this house and most of the textures.

Potatoes, gravy, "meat", mushrooms, peas, corn. The only thing missing was dressing, but this pie was so good I didn't miss it.

Okay, so the picture isn't all that appealing, but nevermind that.

The potatoes were creamy, the sauce was thick, rich and herby and the tempeh was nice and tender.

You know, I should really write these "reviews" much closer to the actual eating experience. It's probably been a few weeks since I made this dish and I had it all worked out in my head what I'd say. I pretty much do for every meal but by the time my lazy ass gets up to write it, I've forgotten. The memories of the flavor details fade fast. Let this be a lesson to me.

In any case, I remember how good this was. It was relatively simple to make, too

I made no substitutions, with the exception of using canola oil instead of grapeseed oil. You can assume from here on out that I will use canola oil unless there's a really good reason to do otherwise.

Cost: Sorta high, in the range of $13-$15.
Difficulty: Moderate.
Cleanup: Pretty easy. Just a skillet and a pot as the main dishes used.

This recipe is on page 167 of Veganomicon.

Spicy Tempeh and Broccoli Rabe With Rotelle

After making this dish I realized that I have for a long time been fan of fennel. And after making this dish I also became a huge fan of broccoli rabe! I'd actually never eaten it before.

The dish was wonderful. The marinade for the tempeh was excellent. I kept smelling it as it reminded me of being in an authentic Italian restaurant. I figured out it was the fennel that I was smelling, and after eating the dish I realized that I really, really liked fennel. It had such a distinct, strong, earthy flavor. I had no idea what "that flavor" was all those years I'd been eating it.

The tempeh was moist and meaty and very flavorful, thanks to the marinade. And the broccoli rabe was mildly bitter with a nice give to it. We both liked it better than spinach, which is fine but usually a bit mushier and not as flavorful.

Although we like whole wheat pasta okay, both of us are usually bigger fans of "regular" pasta, but in this dish, the whole wheat rotelle was just perfect. It gave the dish a bit more heft and meatiness.

All in all, this one goes into our top X list and we'll definitely be making it again. To top it off, it was also an easy dish to make.

This recipe is on page 190 of Veganomicon.

Recipe 2: Spicy Tempeh Nori Rolls

I'll never forget these three words when I think of this dish: "Horrible, vomitous shit." Those came out of my husband, Bryan's, mouth. But the only thing they related to was the smell of the nori seaweed.

When Bryan first came upstairs when I told him dinner was ready, he had to walk into the other room because of the smell. I got irritated at first, probably out of always wanting my work to be worth my time and to be appreciated. So I got a little cranky. But we started to eat it anyway.

It was a pretty simple dish to make, actually. I had never worked with nori before and at first I thought it was just going to break apart as I tried to roll it. But the rice that goes on the bottom 2/3 actually moistens the nori and makes it rollable. That was the point, obviously. I was pleased with how it looked - cute little rolls with regions of avocado, tempeh and green onions. Not that I haven't seen those before, but making it myself felt so rewarding.

The filling was deliciously creamy and meaty. But that nori took over everything. So I gave Bryan permission to scrape off the filling from the nori. And I must admit, I did the same, at least to the extent possible.

When all was said and done, I admitted to Bryan that I thought it smelled like "horrible, vomitous shit" as well but I had to pretend otherwise at first. Later that night I kept saying how much I wanted something else in my stomach to overwhelm that feeling of having that stuff inside me.

This dish was pretty simple and inexpensive, so I don't have any tips or workaround. If you don't mind the smell of seaweed, I highly recommend this dish. If you don't, well, just say you were warned. But, another dish idea came out of this. The tempeh filler would probably make a great "tuna salad." Add a little celery and any other favorite "tuna salad" ingredients, slice up some avocado and put on toasted bread or stuff it into a fresh tomato. I'll try trying that one at some point.

This recipe is on page 47 of Veganomicon.

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.