Vegan Homemade

When my friend Janeen saw that I got fingerling potatoes in my CSA delivery, she suggested this Corn & Fingerling Potato Chowder that she had recently made, which originally came from Cooking Light.  At first I didn’t really consider making it, since I doubt I could get fresh corn around here this time of year, but then it grew on me and I said hey, what the heck?

That’s green onions and hot sauce lending their Christmas colors to the bowl.

The original recipe calls for applewood smoked bacon, which I think kind of makes the recipe since the other ingredients are very simple.  I wanted to use either tempeh bacon or the smoky grilled tempeh from VCON, but didn’t want to wait for anything to marinate.  So I got the idea to try smoky tempeh crumbles; just steamed, crumbled tempeh quickly cooked in a pot with a half recipe of the VCON marinade.  It turne out just…okay.  The tempeh didn’t turn out at all like I was hoping, and I think I used too many potatoes and not enough corn, AND the corn was frozen.  I think fresh corn and a better bacon substitute will make all the difference, so I’ll come back to this one later this year.

Laptop lunches!

2-23 steamed mushroom-pea shoot dumplings with
sweet chili-sesame sauce, edamame, mashed miso-mustard
sweet potatoes, piece of dark mint chocolate

2-24 salad (pea shoots, mushrooms, soy bleu cheese, tahini dressing), kale pesto pasta with white beans, blood orange segments, pb cookies

2-25 grilled soy cheese with pickles & tomato on wheat,
steamed spinach, sauteed mushrooms, snapea crisps,
two kiwis, piece of dark mint chocolate

2-26 kale pesto pasta with white beans, steamed broccoli with nutritional yeast, soy nuggets with bbq sauce, prunes & dried cherries

2-27 the aforementioned corn & fingerling chowder with smoky tempeh crumbles, steamed collards, black pepper rice crackers, half an apple