Red Chile Tempeh

Again, a sucky picture, as there is no longer daylight to help enhance my poor photography...

Anyway, Friday Night is "Mexican Night" in the Tofu-Mom household. (I think I may have mentioned that before.) Usually it involves some sort of Taco-Burrito-crunchy-cheezy-wrapped-up beany thing of my children's choosing; and those options are always good. But tonight, by an unusual twist of fate, I was home alone (oh noes!) and decided to do Mexican Night MY way.


First off, I have been craving red chile sauce. Not some vinegary hot sauce or tomato-y salsa, but the genuine New Mexico stuff; smokey, earthy rich red sauce made from dried, ground Hatch Red Chiles and that's about all.

Nothing else like it - try it if you happen to have a wonderful friend in New Mexico who will keep you supplied! It's not painful-hot, like eating straight cayenne pepper would be; but still a little intense for my kids; That's OK, more for me, and a perfect choice for my solo supper.

So this is what I did: using my crock-pot/slow cooker, I simmered some chunks of tempeh in my beautiful red chile sauce until the tempeh completely soaked up the sauce and fell apart. It was DEE-lish! I made a side of "cheezy rice" (without the brocolli) to go with, and watched Food Network to my heart's content, happy as a little vegan clam.

Red Chile Tempeh

2 tablespoons coconut oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 cup ground red chiles
3 cups cold water
1 package tempeh, cubed

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.
2. Add chile powder and cook for an additional minute.
3. Gradually add the water and stir, making sure that no lumps form.
4. Add seasonings to sauce and simmer at low heat for 10-15 minutes.
5. Add cubed tempeh and simmer over very low heat until tempeh has absorbed flavors and sauce has reduced and is very thick. (I cooked it on low in a crockpot for about four hours).
6. Serve over rice, or in tortillas. Which I didn't, as you can see by my picture.

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I'll leave you with these lovelies.

Chantrelles.

Fresh from the woods near here. What a TREAT! A friend (whom I trust to know his mushroom varities) dropped them off today. I'll have to think of something appropriate to make ...

Vegetarian BBQ in New Mexico

Well, I took myself a little vacation last week, (and obviously neglected the whole blogging thing...).

I was lucky enough to spend a few relaxing (but VERY HOT) days in sunny New Mexico visiting friends and family who live in the area, including my good friend Shaun.

I'll share some highlights and (because I'm single-minded like that) mainly yummy food pictures from Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque over the next few posts...

OK, so Shaun (aka 'Froggy') is the organizer/head of "ABQ-Veg", the Albuquerque Vegan-and-Vegetarian Meetup Group.

He organised and planned the most AWESOME Picnic/BBQ Meetup for his group and anyone else who wanted to come. (Like me!). I was pretty proud of him, he heads a large group and this was a lot of work.
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I brought my standard picnic macaroni salad and Shaun made his own secret-recipe baked-beans and also supplied the burgers, and pineapple - which was just INCREDIBLE when done on the grill!!! The boy has such creative 'Vegan-Grilling' ideas!
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Other members brought tofu-and-veggie kabobs, dips, chips, bread, salads, veggies and such.


I actually helped out with the grilling a good part of the time, along with the Meet-Up's assistant organizer, Josh. I wouldn't say we knew exactly what we were doing when we started, we developed mad skilz on the BBQ quite quickly!!
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It really was a lot of fun, despite the fact that I was sure I would die from the heat.

Lots of fun meeting vegans and vegetarians from another part of the country too!

Lunch at Fei's Cafe, Albuquerque

If you're ever in Albuquerque, you need to go find Fei's Cafe! The place is amazing and ALL VEGAN!

Froggy introduced me to this place and now I'm trying to think of a reason to go back tomorrow or the next day.... Lunch here was so insanely yummy-licious!

Everything is super inexpensive and portions are on the smaller side, so you can try several things if you can't narrow it down...

We started off with vegan Boba Tea, and some 1000 layer-tofu-skin something-or-other which I can't remember the name of, and these heavenly little fried seitan tid-bits called (I think) Vegetable Nuggets.

The Hot-N-Sour soup was amazing and filled with all sorts of tastes and textures. We had other stuff, served in lovely bento-box sort of trays - but I forgot to photograph it. Try the cold sesame noodles though - which are not pictured, but quite drool-worthy.

Again totally vegan. Everything is.

Go there. Eat. Tell the nice people that Froggy and Tofu-Mom recommended it to you. (OK, don't say that, they'll look at you oddly!)

Tempeh Adovada

Another New Mexico favorite, "Carne Adovada" gets remade today... woo!

First, a disclaimer: If you're a green-and-red-blooded native New Mexican food purist who cannot stand the idea of your region's precious and traditional recipe being vegan-ized, read no further... (and I do understand and apologise - heh).

However, if you're vegan, yet still want to enjoy the rich, colorful, spicy flavors of the Southwest - or you're just curious what the heck I'm yammering about, read on.

Carne Adovada is traditionally made from chunks of pork, marinated and cooked in a sauce of ground New Mexican red chiles and other flavors... it's either cooked in the oven or slow cooker until the flavors absorb and the pork literally falls apart and the sauce is very thick.

Well, since my darling Albuquerque friend, Shaun, sent me home from my last visit with every imaginable New Mexican goody, I've been cooking up a storm of yummy, spicy, mouth (and eye)-watering VEGAN hotness. One of the items I wanted to experiment with was this envelope of Carne Adovada Seasoning. I'd heard so many people sing the praises of this dish, I just had to try a vegan version, regardless if it was "authentic" or not...

At first I thought this dry mix was a commercial short-cut "tourist" version of the seasonings, but then I saw (Food Network) Bobby Flay do an episode about carne adovada and he said the best and most 'authentic' thing to use was a mix very similar to what I had. So I was inspired...

For those who feel obligated to point out discrepancies in my methods or results, yes, I know, I KNOW it's "not even close" to real dead-animal Carne Adovada, so, call it 'Red Chile Tempeh' or something less offensive to you. I had fun experimenting and the end result, whatever you choose to call it, is amazing and delicious...

Tempeh Adovada

1 1-or-2 oz. package dry Carne Adovada spice mix
a mixture of 1/2 water and 1/2 red wine, (as much liquid as is called for on the spice package)
2 packages Tempeh (I used flax-seed tempeh because I love the texture)
2 Tb. oil

1.) Put spice mix into a plastic or non-reactive metal bowl. Add amount of liquid per package instructions. (As noted above, I use 1/2 water and 1/2 red wine but all water is good too).
Stir.
2.) Slice the tempeh into strips (a little less than 1/2 inch thick).
3.) Put strips into sauce and carefully stir.
4.) Marinate in fridge a couple hours. If it absorbs all the liquid, add more water. It shouldn't be "soupy" though.
5.) Heat oven to 300°. Put tempeh and sauce into glass baking dish. Drizzle with oil and stir.
6.) Bake tempeh until sauce is sticky and mostly evaporated or absorbed, stirring carefully every 1/2 hour or as needed to prevent it from totally sticking - It'll take at least an hour, probably longer; time will vary according to amount of liquid, how much tempeh absorbs, and type of tempeh.

If you stir the tempeh too hard, it'll crumble into mush. I use a wide, flat spatula and sorta lift it and move it around...

Serve with tortillas (or, sacrilege - my kids like it over rice!). Good stuff! Leftovers reheat wonderfully and make an awesome burrito filling!!

I think next time, I'd like to try it with TVP chunks in the crock pot though, to better imitate the "meat" texture. And of course, I need to let Shaun try it, since he's far more an "authority" on things New Mexican. Stay tuned.