Tempeh Sloppy Joes

For whatever reason vegetarian sloppy joes sounded like a good idea today. I searched the internet for a recipe and there are probably thousands of them. I ended up trying this one (from Lazarocooks) and it was pretty good.

If I had to change anything I'd reduce the amount of tomato sauce and maybe add some lentils or some other beans. Since it was a little too saucy I added about 2 or 3 tablespoons of instant mashed potato flakes to thicken it up a bit. So here's what I ended up with:

Ingredients

8 oz. package tempeh, finely cubed/crumbled (I used this kind)

1 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 tbsp. chili powder

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tsp. Sriracha

2-3 tbsp. potato flakes

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a pan or wok on medium heat. Add onion and saute until transparent.

Add tempeh and red pepper and saute until browned a bit. 

Stir in chili powder, sriracha and garlic powder and saute a little longer.

Add in worcestershire sauce, brown sugar and tomato sauce.

Reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. If it's still too saucy, stir in the potato flakes until thickened to your liking. 

Serve on kaiser buns. Makes at least 4 sandwiches.

Roasted Gobi Aloo - Day 14

Day 14 and we're not really missing the meat at all. We are also spending a lot less (veggies are often cheaper than meat and we're not eating out as much). Here's tonight's meatless meal inspired by this, but simplified by using a prepackaged sauce.

Ingredients

• 4 medium sized yukon gold potatoes, diced
• half a head of cauliflower, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• olive oil
• salt
• 1 pouch of simmer sauce (like Tasty Bite, we used Good Korma)
• sriracha
• 1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed

Preheat oven to 450
Toss potatoes and cauliflower with olive oil and salt. Spread out into a foil lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown on top.
Pour sauce into a big pan or wok and heat on low
When veggies are done, scrape them into the pan and add chick peas. Stir to coat evenly.
Add sriracha to your desired heat level. Add a splash of water if the sauce is too thick.
Simmer for about 5 minutes. Serve over rice.

Breakfast Burritos - Day 10

This morning Nick and I made some awesome vegetarian breakfast burritos. They went something like this:

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 sweet onion, diced
• handful baby portobellos, diced
• half a red pepper, diced
• 1 cup-ish of frozen shredded potatoes
• garlic powder/salt/pepper/sriracha
• butter
• light olive oil
• shredded "taco" cheese
• burrito size flour tortillas
• 
  

We cooked the scrambled eggs first, in butter, and set them aside.

Then, heat some olive oil and spread the potato in a thin layer, sprinkle with spices, let it fry for a few minutes to get crispy. Flip them over and stir in the veggies.

Stir-fry it all together until the onion gets caramelized and everything is starting to get a little crispy. Stir in the sriracha.

Add the scrambled eggs to the pan and stir them in. Turn off the heat and sprinkle with cheese. Roll up into tortillas. Nom!

Tofu Satay - Day 6

Tonight we put together a quick veggie stir-fry inspired by this video:

Except I used the following:

• baby portobellos, chopped 
• sweet onion, diced
• yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1 block of extra firm tofu, diced and shredded a bit
• Satay sauce
• Sriracha

Served over plain white Jasmine rice with a little fresh cilantro on top.

Sriracha Egg Salad - Day 5

Nick (newly obsessed with Sriracha) is making us Sriracha Egg Salad Sandwiches for lunch today. Looks delicious!

Meatless March Day 1

To kick off Meatless March 2012 I'm making Curry Tempeh stir-fry for dinner tonight. I don't have an onion or mushrooms though so tonight's version will be garlic, asparagus, carrots and red pepper. I also don't have any prepackaged curry sauce so I'll be making some from scratch using curry powder and maybe some sriracha sauce.

I'll be serving it with jasmine rice and naan & hummus. Yum!