Vegan MoFo Day 24 - Tempeh Tuesdays - Tempeh bacon for risotto

As I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about the latest recipes I cooked for MoFo Mondays another day of posting was skipped and now it's time for my last Tempeh Tuesdays post. Tempeh bacon was one of the first tempeh recipes I made years ago, I'm not sure which recipe I used but don't recall the tempeh being pre-steamed and have a clear memory of almost destroying a good frying pan in the process! My first impression of tempeh bacon wasn't a good one and as tofu bacon was already a household favourite I've stuck with it for many years. This felt like the perfect time to revisit tempeh bacon as my other three experiments for Tempeh Tuesdays were successes so I wasn't going to be upset if the last one ended badly.

The same marinade that I use for tofu bacon (which was adapted from a recipe on veggieboards) was whisked up to use in the tempeh bacon although I didn't bother adding water as I wanted the flavours in this marinade to be stronger. I fried the slices in my non-stick grill pan that I use for cooking tofu bacon to give the tempeh slices some nice grill marks.

I've been buying so much asparagus recently as I get terribly excited when it comes into season. When I was trying to think of something more interesting than a BLT (or TLT) sandwich as a partner for tempeh bacon I remembered an asparagus risotto that was a favourite a few years ago and thought that it would be lovely with additional smoky facon flavours. I'm so glad I gave tempeh bacon another try as I really enjoyed it this time and it complimented the risotto perfectly.

Although I still haven't progressed to cooking big chunks of tempeh, this series of posts has definitely achieved it's goal. I've grown a lot more comfortable with cooking tempeh, discovered some new recipes I'll definitely make again and won't be intimidated by tempeh recipes any more!

Tempeh Bacon (Marinade adapted from a recipe on veggieboards)

300g tempeh, thinly sliced
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon ketchup
2 teaspoons liquid smoke
oil, for frying

Slice tempeh into thin strips then steam the tempeh slices for 15 minutes. Whisk the soy sauce, maple syrup, ketchup and liquid smoke together in a dish. Place the steamed tempeh slices in the marinade ensuring they are coated evenly and allow to rest for a minimum of 2 hours.

Heat a frying pan or grill pan over medium heat, add some oil and fry the tempeh slices for a couple of minutes on each side, until slightly crispy and lightly browned.

Asparagus risotto

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 red onion, fined diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups (325 grams) arborio rice
6 cups vegan chicken stock
2 bunches of asparagus (400 grams), woody ends removed and cut into 2-3cm lengths
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup MimicCreme, cashew cream or tofutti cream cheese (optional)
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, minced
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
tempeh bacon slices

Heat the olive oil in a deep sided pan over medium-high heat and fry the onions for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute then stir through the rice ensuring that the grains are coated evenly with the oil, onions and garlic. Add a few ladles of stock and stir until the stock has been absorbed. Continue adding a few ladles of stock every time the stock has been absorbed, stirring often, until the rice is almost tender. This should take 15-20 minutes on medium-high heat.

When the rice is almost tender, stir through the asparagus along with some more stock. Continue stirring until the stock has been absorbed then add the nutritional yeast, optional cream and parsley. Season with salt and pepper, to taste and serve topped with tempeh bacon slices.

Planet VeGMeL week (Part 3) - Around the World Vegan Arancini

I love the concept of Keira's Around the World Vegan blog as I thoroughly enjoy exploring food from other countries around the world. Although I have only attempted one of Keira's recipes so far which was home-made cannelloni, it was truly delicious and gave me an introduction and some confidence in pasta making. 

Something that has been on my radar to try for quite some time is making Arancini (Risotto Balls) which Keira recently posted about so this was my selection for Day 3 of Planet VeGMeL week. Initially, my plan was to make a fairly plain risotto in order to keep the rolling simple but I changed my mind and added some home-made pesto for extra flavour and a bit of spinach that needed using up. Rolling the balls was a little time intensive and messy but not beyond me and I knew that cheezly would be popular so I stuffed a little cube inside each ball. The arancini were oven-baked rather than fried as I prefer to use this method wherever possible.

I pondered about what to serve the arancini with, there was something I could remember reading about recently which was a bit like an Italian version of ratatouille with some different ingredients but rather than being a hot dish it was served at room temperature. A quick google search showed that it was Caponata I was thinking of, a Sicilian eggplant salad. After looking at a few recipes that had varying components, I went to my cookbooks and found a recipe in Vegan Planet that I settled upon. There were a few reasons for this choice, the first being that Vegan Planet hasn't had a lot of love recently, the second was that all ingredients could be found at home and finally the recipe sounded like it was a good combination of elements.

The arancini were lovely and crunchy with a delicious centre oozing with cheezly and caponata was the perfect accompaniment. The caponata was made up of onions, garlic, eggplant, red capsicum, tomatoes, red wine vinegar, capers, sugar, parsley and seasoned with salt and pepper. I'm sure I will make both of these dishes in the future so perhaps I'll post a caponata recipe some other time as recipe posting was not supposed to be part of this week.

Day 4 may need to involve something spicy. I think I know what's next on the agenda but I'll keep it quiet for now...

Rum Balls and Risotto

For my first Christmas as a vegan I really wanted to veganise my standard rum ball recipe to bring along to the family dos. Two days before Christmas that dream was shattered as a trip to my local health food store found the stocks of Soymilke had been depleted and were not going to be replenished for a few weeks :-(

After poking around at Vic Markets last Saturday I dropped into Global Green Vegetarian across the road to pick up a few bits and pieces and was delighted to find some Soymilke on the shelves!!! So last night I trialled some vegan rum balls with great success - better late than never...

Dinner for me and hubby was risotto which he normally loves but this one didn't hit the spot. I choose the Green Pea and Lemon Risotto with Roasted Capsicums from Veganomicon which turned out a tad overpowering on lemon front. Pretty sure this is my first fail from Veganomicon, it's not a recipe that will be repeated.

Edited to add: Peppermint and orange essenses can be substituted for rum to give these chocolately balls a totally different flavour. If this sounds more like your thing, take a look at my posts about choc-mint balls and jaffa balls.


Vegan Rum Balls
250g packet Arnott's Nice biscuits
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
330g can Soymilke soy condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essense
1 tablespoon light rum (or 2 if you prefer a bigger rum flavour)
Extra desiccated coconut, for coating

Place biscuits in a food processor and process until biscuits are a fine powder. Add the cocoa and 1/2 cup coconut and pulse a few times. Transfer mixture to a bowl then add the soy condensed milk, vanilla essense and rum and mix together until everything is well combined.

Place mixture in refrigerator for about 30 minutes which gives it a firmer texture and makes it easier to roll the balls. If the mixture is too soft, it gets very sticky and difficult to roll properly and the rum balls will not hold their shape.

Place extra coconut in a bowl. Roll spoonfuls of mixture into balls with your hands, and then coat in coconut. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.