Tempeh Bacon Experiment-That Recipe Looks Familar

We went over our download limit this week so have not been able to blog about last weeks potluck til now. I'm not too sad about it though because I need to reserve my efforts for vegan mofo, where we (mostly I) will try to blog every day. In reality I will try to stick to 5 posts a week but will see how I go.  Anyway, back to the potluck and the that recipe seems familar blog event.  Both the event and the potluck was to celebrate  Planet VegMel's 2nd birthday.  Planet VegMel is a wonderful site where you can view all the Melbourne veg blogs in one spot. You can read about the first round of posts for the blog event here. There was also a cute zine created at the last minute.

The potluck was great, there was so much amazing food which resulted in me feeling super full and exhausted. You can read about some of the dishes online including Steph's caramel slice, Mel's tofu quiches and apricot delights, Emily's eggplant salad, Michael's enchiladas, Vicki's peanut butter balls, Johannas cake pops, Cindy's cookie sandwiches, Carla's mock crab cakes, Dannis' muffins and bread, Emily's gado gado and turkish truffles. There was more dishes too and thankfully most of the dishes were gluten free so I didn't have to miss out on much. Thanks everyone, it really means a lot! It was great to meet a few new people and to make friends with Johannas cute daughter Sylvia.

Toby wasn't feeling well and so wasn't planning on going til the last minute so he needed some quick to make. He decided on the tempeh not bacon from wheres the beef:

Tempeh, not bacon
(based on recipe at Get Sconed!)

300g tempeh
4 tablespoons soy sauce
~1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon golden syrup
1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 teaspoons tomato paste
vegetable oil, for frying

Slice the tempeh into the thinnest sheets you can.

Whisk the rest of the ingredients (except the oil) together in a bowl.

Spread some of the marinade on the base of a shallow tray, lay out the tempeh, and spread over more marinade. Let the tempeh soak up the yum for at least a couple of hours; pop it in the fridge and it'll last for days.

When the tempeh's ready, pour a little oil in a fry pan a heat it to medium/high. Fry the tempeh strips until they darken and crisp up a little.

He put it on top of some tofu 'egg'  and hollandaise sauce from vegan brunch. The tofu egg wasn't particuarly eggy because we didn't have black salt but I enjoyed the hollaindaise sauce:

 Despite being not the biggest fan of tempeh, I loved it so I decided to also try the tempeh bacon from easy as vegan pie:

Tempeh Bacon originally from Veg News TV
1 packet of tempeh, pat dry and slice thinly
1/4 cup of soy sauce/tamari
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1 tbsp of liquid smoke

1. Steam the tempeh slices for 8-10 minutes in vegie steamer. The tempeh will go a whiteish colour.

2. Mix up the marinade and soak the tempeh strips for an hour or over night if possible.

3. Line up the tempeh strips on a wire rack and drain the marinade off then line the little soldiers up on a baking sheet and grill them at 200 degrees (or high). I just fried mine for about 10 minutes on each side.

I served it for over brown rice, with roasted pumpkin, greens and the wonderful chickpea gravy from appetite for reduction which all made one super yummy and almost healthy dinner.

The main difference with this recipe was the steaming, which does result in a slightly superior flavour and texture. We will certainly stick to steaming from now on.

I do have one more post for the recipe looks familar blog event, but might save it for vegan mofo. See you in a weeks time!