greens and tempeh

I attempted my first tempeh cooking. I've been vegan for about a year and a half (or tried to be, for the most part) and I never touched trying to cook tempeh or tofu. That Cancer Project cooking class is great!

The teacher made sure to emphasize the 4 types of soy that are ok -- the point is that they're all fermented, which means our body can digest it (or something.) The good soys are: tempeh, miso, soy sauce, and natto. She does not recommend natto. It may be what my friend from Taiwan calls "stinky" tofu. The others she said are good although soy sauce can have a lot of sodium so choose the low sodium kind and use it sparingly. She says she'd give tofu a "C-" and cautions not to overdue it on soy products, and stay away from fake soy meats (they are worse for you then some meats because of the concentration of soy protein -- bad for your kidneys which has to deal with it.)

Anyway, the secret to tempeh, I have learned, both from her and from the Food For Life podcasts, is you have to steam it for 10-15 minutes prior to use. I forget why, but just do it. After that you can cook it however you'd like.

So I made the same tempeh and kale meal we had at the cooking class and it was good! Easy to make too. I used organic veggie added tempeh, steamed it, and then just tossed it around in my wok with the kale, which I bought ready-to-go from Whole Foods. I want to try it preparing the kale myself though, because I know it'd be healthier to cut out the added oils in the kale. It was pretty good though.

I'm still not eating enough greens though. I'm not even making once a day. Colleen Patrick-Goudreau of Compassionate Cooks has a recipe for kale in one of her podcasts and I want to try that. I just need to prepare the kale (wash, separate) and have it ready to go because I'm rather lazy around dinner time. Also, I want to try dinosaur kale, which is not the super curly kind I usually find everywhere. I also want to learn some good recipes for swiss chard because I know I used to love it in my mom's torta. It might be good with nutritional yeast sprinkled on.

By the way, I'm really enjoying these vegan "quesadillas" lately. You use roasted red pepper hummus, salsa, a sprinkle of nutritional yeast, and these yummy sprouted grain tortillas. I think I like them more than regular quesadillas, which were always a little too chewy and greasy for me.

Speaking of food, I am getting hungry. I didn't make it out of the office on my lunch before my boss had to move his car so now I'm waiting for everyone to get back so I can get some food. Not sure what to get though...

They're back. Gotta go browse 'round Safeway now.