Tempeh Cacciatori

An all-vegan cacciatore recipe made with tempeh instead of meat and simmered with plenty of herbs and spices for flavor. No need to forego your favorite Italian foods when you are vegetarian or vegan, just use tempeh instead, as in this cacciatore recipe.
Ingredients:
1 pound fried tempeh
1 tsp sesame oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp tomato pesto
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
2 tablespoons white miso
1 tsp dried parsley
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp natural sea salt
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp ginger
Preparation:
Cut the fried tempeh into 2 inch squares. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Sautee the onion and garlic for two minutes. Add the tomato pesto, broth, mushrooms, herbs salt and spices and stir thoroughly blended.
Bring the sauce to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring often.
Add the tempeh squares and the miso and continue to simmer until the tempeh is heated through.
Serve the cacciatore with whole wheat pasta or brown rice.
Cacciatore means "hunter" so this is a vegetarian hunter recipe  ideal for warm summers, as it is rather Yin. I give it a Yin -4 on my Yin Yang food scale. If you do not want to use tomatoes, you can replace them by pureed pumpkin.

Soy Products

In the beginning when you start to eat health food, you will have a tendency to "replace" your meat with soy products: don't do this!
The only soy products that are good for our body are fermented soy products:
miso(soy paste), tamari & soju (soy sauces), tempeh and natto.
Tofu is not fermented and should not be eaten on a regular basis: it is too Yin, and bad for your life essense. When I eat tofu, perhaps once every two months, I cook it first 30 minutes in soy sauce.
TVP (texturized vegetable protein) is not natural at all: it is made from defatted soy flour, a by-product of extracting soybean oil.

About 1000 B.C. some smart person in China discovered that a mold, when allowed to grow on soybeans, destroyed the toxins present and made the nutrients in the beans available to the body. This process became known as fermentation and led to the creation of the still popular foods tempeh, miso, and natto.
I will write more about all those products later, but please remember this: unfermented soybeans contain potent anti-nutrients.
In their natural form, soybeans contain phytochemicals with toxic effects on the human body. The three major anti-nutrients are phytates, enzyme inhibitors and goitrogens.
Tomorrow I will write about diagnosis.

Tempeh Nuggets

Image via Wikipedia
When I saw Jamie Oliver making chicken nuggets, I wanted to replace all what is not healthy and try to make vegan nuggets with tempeh.
Ingredients:
1 bloc of tempeh (150 gr/5 oz), cut in 16 pieces
1 table spoon of arrowroot
0.5 tea spoon sea salt
1 tea spoon ginger  powder
3 table spoons  chick pea flour or whole wheat flour
other dried herbs at your taste.
Put the arrowroot in some water and cook, while stirring, till transparent, and pour it on a cold plate. Put the arrowroot paste with a kitchen brush on the tempeh in a thin layer and afterwards roll the tempeh in the mix of the flour, salt, ginger and herbs.
Put the tempeh in an oiled pan, with a lid that is smaller than the pan, so the lid will rest on the tempeh,that will give the tempeh a more fried look.