Herding Cats

Italian Marinated Tempeh

I remember the first time I tried to go vegan way back in say, 97ish. I was living in Ocean Beach in hipster/hippie town. Full of cool dives and antique stores. There is a really nice vegetarian Co-Op in OB called People’s and I spied tempeh one day, and brought it home and cooked it with disastrous results.  I had never eaten it before and had no friends who knew how to cook it either. I think I cut it up and fried it in oil. So gross. I vowed never to cook it again. Fast forward to 12 or so years later when I buy Isa’s Vegan With A Vengeance. It has a really great recipe for Tempeh Bacon. I held off for almost a year before I took the plunge and bought some tempeh and made this stuff. It’s so delicious and easy to make. After that I was sold on tempeh, but that was all I knew how to make out of it. On our honeymoon in Vegas I bought a copy of Veganomicon and it has a recipe for Smokey Grilled Tempeh. Due to these two cookbooks tempeh has been demystified. No more is it some strange hard to cook substance. It is now something I cook on a pretty regular basis and I have future plans of teaching myself how to make it at home. I am even starting to make my own recipes for tempeh marinades. Today for lunch I made Italian Marinated Tempeh. I used the Italian Tofu Marinade recipe out of V*Con and steamed the tempeh and marinated it for a few hours while I went and got a much needed mani-pedi. Fried it up and served it with some mashed potatoes.

Do any of you have the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook? I just got my copy in the mail a few days ago and I really want to make the block cheeses but I am unsure as to what to use as a mold. Any suggestions?