3 posts tagged “tempeh”

with my successful batch of tempeh under my belt i decided to turn my house into a fermentation station this weekend.  this weekend i made:

tempeh incubating

another batch of tempeh.  here it is perking away.  you can just barely see the first hints of mycelium.

kimchi

kimchi or kimchee.  i have recently become besotted with korean food and you can't have korean food without kimchi.  and while storebought kimchi is nice, most of it has fish sauce [*gag*] in it.  it's dead easy to make with the correct ingredients so i made some.  it's fermenting away right now.  if only i could convey the smell wafting from this open container.  deliciously powerfully stinky.  my b.f. made loud bellicose noises about refusing to eat kimchi.  i don't mind.  more for me. 
i had some tonight.  it was delicious.  i anxiously await further fermentation, though.  yum.












and i also made a batch of soy yogurt.  i don't have a picture because yogurt's pretty boring.  but i do have a picture of a non-fermented soy product:

tofu

homemade tofu.  it's not fermented but i'll include it in this post anyway because i made it about the same time as the tempeh and kimchi and yogurt. 

after FOUR miserable, horrible failed attempts over the past year or so, i finally FINALLY finally made tempeh from SCRATCH!
::rips off shirt/runs around block::
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARR!!!!!! 

here it is after 32 hours of incubating in my gas oven over the pilot light:

tempeh

and here it is, in all its' GLORY:

tempeh!

beeeeyoteeeeeful!!!!!!!!  but here is the money shot:

tempeh sliced

gawjus.  just gawjus. 

i may have taken it out of incubation a little to early.  the mycelium (white stuff) isn't really THICK but i don't care.  it is a firm little cake, just like storebought tempeh.  it has a lovely mushroomy scent.  and since i actually didn't fail this time i can simply repeat the steps i took to make it and MAKE MORE!  woot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sounds great, right?  i was thinking that this evening.  i was thinking "hey, why not??"  i may have been inspired by littlepath's pizza post.  mmm. pizza.

so i ground the wheat berries in the ol' vitamix and made an approximation of pizza dough and set it to rise.  ::check::

then?  i realized:  i didn't have any fun traditional toppings.  no fresh tomatoes or peppers. and i didn't have any tomato sauce, which was fine because i could make some right?  wrong.  i ran out of onions yesterday.  i like onions in my sauce!  i was also out of oregano.  drat.  i was staring at a blank crust.

so i made some vegan cheese while the crust was rising.  then i remembered that i had a container of pesto in the freezer that i made last summer to use up the last of the basil crop.  yum!  digging deep in the back of the cabinets i found some black olives.  canned but it was all i had.  and i had a jar of roasted red peppers.  and tempeh!  suddenly a plan came together:

pizza

pizza cutting