The pandemic has left our stores only half full of goods and most of the vegan products are missing, so I've been eating a lot of, "not so good for you food." I got on the scale yesterday and yikes! I've gained 25 pounds this last year!!! So, it's back to my old way of eating and getting out in the garden. This week, I'm making all kinds of, "good food things," that all take a couple of days to make and can be stored in the freezer, s/a sourdough bread, vegan sausages and burger patties, almond milk yogurt and last, but not least, tempeh.
I've been learning about some shortcuts for making homemade tempeh and am trying them out on this new batch. In the original recipe that I have, they want you to slip all of the skins off of the soybeans before making it...what a pain. But, I saw on a little, side note that you can just chop the cooked beans with a sharp knife to open up the beans and allow the fungus to grow, so, I'm trying that. Another idea is to poke a lot of tiny holes in a freezer bag and put the inoculated beans in that to allow to mature into tempeh. Those were both great ideas. My bad idea was to use the oven for the growing chamber. I think that it is just too hot in there. Tempeh culture likes to grow in a temp of about 88 degrees and my oven gets hotter than that with just the pilot light. I tried this last night and the tempeh looks OK this morning and smells delicious, but there is no white growth on it. Grrrr.
I realize that this is a kind of weird topic for most of you, but if you have tried making your own tempeh, please chime in. I need some advice. Thanks.