Fried BBQed Tempeh
 

I'm starting my weight loss program in January, I swear. But until then, I'm getting all of my sinful eating out of the way during the month of December. One, is fried foods. No, fried foods are not good for you, but I've often said that if someone says that they don't like a food, just fry it and watch them gobble it down. Tempeh is one of those foods. My kids won't touch it and I still don't understand why. Maybe I should fry up some for them some day. It's pretty tasty stuff. I made some for breakfast this morning. I added some BBQ sauce at the end and flipped it over to brown it up a little. So good! The tempeh patties tasted a lot like hash browns...BBQed hash browns...even better!

You can usually find tempeh in the vegan area of the produce section. Although, with the pandemic raging, it's been harder to find lately. This recipe is easy to make. Just take a tempeh patty right out of the package, cut it in half, or quarters and highly season it with salt, pepper and chili spices. Heat up about 1/2 inch of oil in a pan and add the patties. Cook over medium heat until the underside is light, to medium brown, flip and cook the other side the same way. Flip again and pour on some BBQ sauce evenly over the top side. Flip again and pour some more BBQ sauce on that side. Brown each side a little more and serve. It's great with fried eggs and a nice fruit medley. Oh...and lots of hot sauce.

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.