Little Weekend Roundup

Mady had her yearly shots on Saturday. My poor little girl - look at those eyes. She was a good girl though even with all the barking dogs waiting around her. She is still not a 100% herself today but little by little she is feeling better.

Spent time in Manteca Union Cemetery - got some shots of 1800s stones that are nicely preserved. A lot of times stones from the 1800s are really worn making them hard to read so I was delighted to find a nice selection with script that photographed well.

After going to the movies and looking at Halloween stuff we had dinner at Freebirds. We learned about the Tempeh Calabacitas - and had to go in to try it out. While I love tofu, it is nice to see a place offering something other than tofu to it's meat free customers. I ordered a salad bowl with Calabacitas, Spanish rice, guac, Death Sauce, jalapeno's, veggies and more hot sauce! It was really good. I love all of the vegan options at Freebirds. Everything tasted fresh and had a authentic kick to it.

It was a pretty chill weekend. I am working on zine stuff like editing cemetery photos and looking up history. I am trying to stay happy and just relax my mind. I hope your weekend was awesome!

Recent Foods Eats - Kitchen & East Bay

I bought The Oh She Glows cookbook right away. Since I am a fan of the blog and the recipes I know the book would make me happy and our bellies happy. I have tried a few recipes and our fave is the balsamic tempeh. It smells so good in the oven and once out of oven, the flavors are simple but magical.

I tossed the tempeh on a salad with roasted chickpeas, hummus, dressing and greens. A slice off leftover bread toasted rounded out the meal. I am making the tempeh again tonight, another salad combo but with a few twists, like a different dressing. I used to buy dressing all the time - now I have my mini mason jars and love combining oils, vinegars and spices to create my own.

We spent last weekend in San Francisco and Berkeley. I bought some kitchen and lunch essentials at Republic of V.  The chips are tasty, light cheeze flavor, not super oily like other chips and have a strong crunch factor without cutting into one's gums.

We ate at Flaco's twice over the weekend. Both times I got the huarache plate with black beans! The extra thick corn tortillia is so good! The huarache is my go to as well as stealing bites off Matt's taquito plate.

Speaking of picking off Matt's plate...He ordered the savory brunch on Sunday at Timeless. I have a headache and lack of sleep had the genius idea to have more caffiene and a bear claw...I picked off his plate of french toast delight....Then ordered myself more sugar and coffee to go!

On Monday to keep it simple and clean up all the fried food and caffeine in my system it was gluten free pizza night and a simple salad tossed with red wine vinaigrette and topped with hummus.

Citrus Tempeh

Our neighbor has given us a box of citrus fruit! Tangerines, oranges and lemons. Besides making fresh squeezed OJ for Matt in the morning I have been using it in marinades.

I mixed the juice of a small grapefruit, orange and a bit of lemon with Braggs, pepper and olive oil. I marinated the tempeh for an hour and baked it covered in foil for 20 minutes, flipping once and then leaving it uncovered and baking for 10 minutes. I find covering the tempeh with foil lets it steam in the flavor. I used the rest of the lemon to make lemon brocolini from the Meatless cookbook. I served it with a side dish from my childhood spaghetti with Earth Balance and vegan Parmesan cheeze. Simple but flavorful with all of the fresh from the tree citrus.

BBQ Tempeh Chili & Baked Breaded Tofu

So one of my goals for 2013 is to try at least 2 new recipes a month, so far I am making new to me recipes few times a week! I often get stuck in food ruts and I am always looking for new recipes that will satisfy both Matt and I.

I bought a bag of panko bread crumbs when I was at Whole Foods, because buying vegan bread crumbs around  here is not working out. So I wanted to make something that included them right away. Usually in the past I just used bread crumbs as a baked mac and cheeze topper...I decided to try the crispy baked tofu recipe from Chow Vegan. I used a 30 oz block of WildWood (my go to tofu). I served it with stove top mac and cheeze, a baked potato and BBQ sauce for dipping. It was good, however next time I am going to eliminate 1/2 of the bread crumb, I had so much left over after breading the tofu. Also I will be playing around with spices to kick it up.

In the current issue of Vegetarian Times there is a article on 5 ingredient chili mixes. I was curios. Matt and I both like BBQ, pinto beans and tempeh, while I like slaw...so we went with the BBQ Tempeh Chili recipe. It was easy to throw together after a trip to the gym. I baked some sweet potato pieces as a side (which Mar ate most of unless I wanted to get scratched up). It was good, simple and made a nice sized pot.


What recipes are you making lately that you love? Any food goals for 2013?

BBQ Tempeh Tacos With Sriracha Slaw

 

We like tacos, we like BBQ and I was craving the texture of tempeh (am I the only one who finds comfort in the texture of food?) so the BBQ tempeh taco with Sriracha slaw was born! Served with red rice and lemon and you are good to go. 

I just pan fried the tempeh (cut into long fingers) in olive oil till browned. Added some BBQ sauce to coat, turned the heat down low, covered the pan and steamed the slices in the pan for about 10-15 minutes. The slaw is pretty basic: broccoli slaw mix, a dollop of  Vegenaise, a hefty squirt of Sriracha and a drizzle of lemon juice. Everything was served up in warm corn tortillas.

[Vegan Mofo] Buffalo Tempeh Fingers

I am not a huge fan of tempeh - I find it OK as a bacon substitute in sandwiches but for the most part the texture is just funky. I was looking for a easy dinner with an alternate protein source for dinner and came up with this easy recipe!


Buffalo Tempeh Fingers

1 package of tempeh cut into strips (fingers)
2 tablespoons of Earth Balance
1/4 of a cup of hot sauce (I mixed Frank's RedHot & Sriracha)
a bit of oil for frying
vegan ranch and sweet potato fries (optional)

Fry tempeh strips in oil (medium heat) till each side is browned - do not burn them. While they brown up combine EB and hot sauce together in a saucepan - cook till EB is melted - stir. Lower temperature and poor hot sauce mix over tempeh - coating it, let it cook this way for 5 minutes. Then turn the heat up and let it cook for a minute or two to get the sauce to really stick. Serve it with vegan ranch and sweet potato fries - like I did or in a sandwich!