Recipe: Buffalo Tempeh Dip

The NFL season is heating up in the race for playoff slots. Thanksgiving is just a few days away. Whether you eat it on a football Sunday or with your family while anxiously awaiting the holiday's main feast, the season is ripe for snack foods that warm the eater against the dropping temperatures outside. Chicken wings don't comply with our vegan diet, but this Buffalo Tempeh Dip has all the same fiery qualities that I love so dearly.

Yum!

Ingredients:

1 lb. tempeh
4 oz. Daiya Brand Sheddar Style Shreds
4 oz. Daiya Cream Cheese Style Spread
6 oz. Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream
3/4 C. Frank's Red Hot Sauce

Preheat oven to 350.

Place tempeh into a pot and cover with water to cover. Over medium heat, bring the water to a simmer. Reduce heat and maintain a low simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Remove the tempeh from the pot and allow to cool enough to handle. Once cooled, dice the tempeh into small 1/4" cubes and place them into a large mixing bowl.

Crumble the Cream Cheese Style Spread into the bowl, then add all remaining ingredients. Stir the mixture until everything is thoroughly combined.

Transfer the mix into a 8" x 8" casserole dish and level with a spoon. Cover the casserole dish with foil.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, removing the foil after 30 minutes. After removing the dip from the oven, allow it to cool for 10 minutes or more.

Jess and I enjoyed this Buffalo Tempeh Dip while we watched football with Reis this past weekend. We ate it with celery sticks and water crackers, but you could use any of your favorite dippers: tortilla chips, pita chips, any variety of cracker, or most any veggie you could think of. Cauliflower strikes me as a particularly promising option! Enjoy!

Book Review: Eat To Live Cookbook

Eat To Live is a book that Jess read when she first became vegan. It also is the book that her mom read that set her on her vegan-ish journey (she is 95% vegan). So, they were both really excited about the Eat To Live Cookbook coming out. Jess grabbed it off of the shelf the first time she saw it. With a $30 price tag, she probably should have looked through the book a bit more before buying it (her own admission).

The book starts off with a brief introduction to the "nutratarian" way of eating. It's basically a summary of the original Eat To Live book without all of the scientific details. Jess really enjoyed reading this. She felt that it was easy to understand and that it paints a clearer picture to the layman than Eat to Live does. Dr. Furman suggests eating a whole foods, plant based diet with a large amount of leafy greens. He does allow small amounts of dairy and meat, but advises that they be used as condiments rather than the main dish. There is a separate and small section of recipes that include these items at the back of the book. Jess and I, of course, payed this section no mind.

When it comes to the heart of the book (the recipes), the handful that we tried were hit-and-miss. They seem to suffer from the same malady that plagues most cookbooks published by doctors and nutritionists rather than chefs and connoisseurs; the recipes place all emphasis on being healthful and occasionally forget about what qualities are required to make a delicious dish. In addition, some of the recipes are bewilderingly non-traditional. Don't get me wrong, I love to be experimental and try new things, but some of the serving suggestions in the Eat To Live Cookbook were just a bit too much. How about serving Spaghetti Squash Primavera over shredded lettuce? We tried it out of curiosity. You should not. I will say, though, that the lettuce at least added some texture to the primavera which was mushy and texture-free when cooked as the book directed.

There were recipes that we enjoyed quite a bit. "Cheesy" Kale Soup has earned a spot in our favorite recipe binder, in fact. The great recipe to lackluster recipe ratio was just too low for our liking, though, and along with the expensive nature of a lot of the recipes (cashew butter and Mediterranean pine nuts are priced at a premium!) we couldn't continue with the cookbook as long as we had planned.

We would have loved to suggest purchasing the Eat To Live Cookbook as we would love to suggest all of the vegan books and cookbooks out there, but unfortunately we cannot. There are other cookbooks available that offer more delicious food while being just as healthy. The original Eat To Live is great and one of the formative books to Jess's veganism, so if you're looking for some vegan reading and don't absolutely need the new recipes go ahead and pick that up instead.

Sunday Runday: November 10, 2013

This is going to be a quick one, because I have the opportunity to go to bed early and I'm pretty tired! This was what my running looked like this week:

Monday: 3 miles on the treadmill at a 10:54 min/mile pace

Saturday: 3.5 miles on the treadmill with an average pace of 10:35. I increased my speed gradually as I went.

Sunday: I ran outside at a park down the road and I wasn't dressed properly. I ran 2 miles at an average pace of 9:41. I was going so fast because I wanted to finish so I could go get warm! I felt pretty good and probably could have kept going if I had a hat. Lesson learned!

I missed one run this week and today's run was short. So, next week I'll have to try to make that up. So far I've ran 14.5 miles and I have 35.5 left!

Trip to Ithaca

We have mentioned in one or two posts before that we make trips over to Ithaca, NY from out hometown of Corning. Ithaca offers a lot of vegan grocery options that we don't have available locally. Yesterday we made one of these trips that we'd like to share with you.

Thai food is Josiah's favorite ethnic cuisine variety, but Thai is something that Corning has a woeful lack of. Corning doesn't have any Thai restaurant and even the Wegmans grocery store in Corning fails to stock a lot of the Thai pantry items that we would like. Just a few days ago we had our hearts set on making a Thai green curry at home, only to find that green curry paste didn't have a home on our local Wegmans' shelves. We settled with making a red curry, but red curry tends to be a little too hot for my tastes. To make up for this, we stopped at Tast of Thai Express as soon as we got into Ithaca to enjoy a lunch. Josiah got the green curry tofu while I opted for the yellow curry tofu. Reis, much to his disappointment, wasn't allowed to have any of the pretty Thai food. He had to stick to his formula.

So many options!

You can see the resentment in Reis's eyes

Greenstar is a small Ithacan co-op grocery. It stocks all sorts of local, organics products such as produce, tofu, and tempeh. Greenstar is a must-stop for us if for no other reason than the 2 pounds bricks of tempeh that they sell. We also regularly buy from the greater variety of Larabars, Daiya products, soy yogurts, and bulk foods (both dry and wet). Their prepared foods are also spectacular. Pick up some Macro Mama peanut noodles or a vegetarian "tuna" sub and I doubt you'll be dissappointed. Wegmans has gradually begun offering some of these products that we could formerly only find at Greenstar, like agave nectar, increasingly more Daiya varieties, and better brands of soy yogurts, but it is unlikely that we'll ever stop visiting Greenstar. Sometimes, though, we do get a little fed up with the crowds. It's a popular place (especially on a Saturday afternoon) and the building is no warehouse.

This trip we didn't make it to the Ithaca Farmer's Market. We left Corning later in the day and our time in Ithaca was more limited than usual. Also, the produce available is much more exciting in the heart of the Summer rather than this long after the harvest is over and the weather's gone cold. But, just for craps and chuckles, here's a picture of Reis and myself at the Ithaca Farmer's Market from earlier in the year.

Sunday Runday: November 3, 2013

My goal is to create a sub-section of this blog called "Sunday-Runday" and I'll give a little recap of my running for the week. Feel free to skip over it, if you aren't interested. I just need a place to be accountable and report on goals that I have set.

My current goal is to run 50 miles during the month of November for Pile on the Miles. 

So far, I'm off to a good start. I ran 3 miles on Friday at the gym on the treadmill. That run was not fun. It was my first time going that distance on the treadmill since getting pregnant. It was a struggle, but I stuck with it until I hit my goal. It felt like my legs were filled with lead!

Saturday's run was also 3 miles, but I got to get outside. It started off a little rough because I was sort of sore from Friday's run. I felt like I was going slower than I have been going recently. I took a look at my Garmin and sure enough, I was. Not really sure what was going on there, but that's part of why I'm doing this challenge. I want to get back to where I was before I had Reis. 

I was going to run again today, but I'm pretty sore. I'll be doing a lot of foam rolling and stretching today. I plan on running another 3 miles tomorrow night at the gym. 6 miles down, 44 more to go! 

Happy World Vegan Day / Month!

What a perfect time to get the blog going again! We are getting World Vegan Month started on the right foot at our house. Jess started her Pile On The Miles Challenge and we've been making some recipes from the Eat to Live Cookbook (We'll have a review post soon!)

We have a party to go to tomorrow and we are still deciding what to bring. Trying to be healthy seems to make food-centric gatherings harder. I have plenty of unhealthy recipes to please the omnis. I'm thinking perhaps a crockpot soup and a veggie tray with guaca-hummus. What are your favorite healthy recipes for large gatherings?

Reis says "Have a great World Vegan Day / Month!"

"& BEING NAUGHTY" indeed!