Maudy's Cooking Journal!

Several packs of frozen tempeh were still sitting in our freezer last weekend. I think I made more tempeh last summer than I usually did in the previous summers. I like to make tempeh then store them to supply us during winter time -when we don't get vegetable from CSA. We still buy veggies from grocery stores in winter, but it's just nice to have more variety since winter-veggie variability is kinda low. If I can find off-season vegetables, they are usually not in their best performance.

Tempeh is also a great ingredient for emergency food for our little family. Cooking it is so easy and quick. Since tempeh is meaty and fulfilling, I don't need to go through the hassle of cooking meat (no thawing, less utensils needed, and less dishes to wash). Here are the ingredients for the spicy tempeh I made last Saturday. My apology for not including the measurement. I followed my grandma's suggestion to "be brave, use your judgement" in cooking

Spicy Tempeh
Ingredients:
Tempeh, cubed
Red onion, chopped
Garlic, chopped
Chili pepper, chopped
Lemon grass
Kaffir lime leaves
Soy sauce
Sweet soy sauce
Shrimp paste (belacan)
Coriander powder
Cumin powder
Salt

Heat oil in a wok over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, pepper, and lemon grass, and sauté until until fragrant. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the tempeh), mix for about 3 minutes. Add tempeh. Stir fry for few minutes, until tempeh is well seasoned. Serve over rice.

It's my 300th entry!!!Thanks to all my readers who keep visiting this blog eventhough I am often too busy to write. Special thanks to you who give me comments in person or in writing, and to my family who visits this blog regularly. I hope we all find this blog useful. God bless us.

As some of you may know that I love nasi bungkus. Nasi bungkus is rice and its side dish that are wrapped with either banana leaf or coated paper. Please read my old entries right here and here.

We went hiking again last Saturday, and I prepared this nasi bungkus in a really short time. We watched a play the night before and got home almost midnight, so I was too tired to cook. On Saturday morning, I just put together whatever was available for our lunch. The rice was fried rice browned with sweet soy sauce.
The side dishes were my homemade salted egg and baked tempeh. I baked the tempeh days before for snack and store it for days in the refrigerator. I found out that it came in handy when I had no chance to cook.

We enjoyed our hiking that day. The weather was perfect, although darkish layers of clouds rested above us for some parts of our hike. We finally got to a big grassy meadows after hiking a steep and narrow trail crossing a wooded forest. We had our lunch there, with big rocks as dining chair and blue sky as the ceiling. What a blessing!

Two weeks ago, hubby was upset about something related to his work. I tried to convince him that everything would be ok, but he didn't really buy it. He wasn't upset about me, so I couldn't do anything to fix the problem.

In the morning while preparing his lunch, I got an idea of making bento. I got the idea from some websites showing creative and funny bentos. But mine wasn't so great. I didn't have bento tools nor the ingredients, so I used what I had. I shaped the rice to a circle, then added several vegetables to form Mickey Mouse's face. I knew it wasn't perfect, but I had hoped it could have cheered him up.

At noon, I asked him if he had opened his lunch box. He told me that he was eating and almost done. I asked him if he liked the Mickey Mouse I made. He didn't understand what I was talking about. Then I explained if he saw a Mickey Mouse-shaped rice. He was confused. He said he ate his lunch while working on his computer, so he didn't even look at the food. Ergh!

Btw, some people asked how to cook tempeh. The picture above is one example of a dish that has tempeh as one of the ingredients. It is stir-fried vegetables and tempeh. The vegetables included red, yellow, and green green peppers, okras, and tomatoes. I'll post the recipe sometime.

Have a great and safe long weekend everyone! See y'all next week!

The hardest part of making tempeh is separating the hulls (skin) from the soybeans. That part could take up hours and mess up my kitchen. I've tried several possible ways to get the beans skinless, but none was easy. It could be just me because I never found any complaint from all tempe making website I read. I am wondering how people in my country do that part.

Dehulling the bean is important for the fermentation. If there are beans with hulls intact, the yeast can't infiltrate the membrane, thus the fermentation isn't perfect. This causes the tempeh to be fragile, not solid like what tempeh should be.

I suddenly remember that I like to buy skinless mung bean for bakpao (Baozi/Chinese bun) filling. If there are machines to un-skin tiny mung beans, there had to be one for soybean. Imagine how many people out there need dehulled soybeans for soymilk. Then I search for dehulled soybeans, and I was right. They existed! I tried to find legume distributors that sold those but found ones sell for industries only and none had a store close to our place.

Sunday noon after lunch, hubby and I went to a store that sold organic stuffs in bulk. They didn't have dehulled soybeans, but beside the soybean's box, there was a box of split-skinless green peas. Aha! I had to give it a try. Hubby couldn't understand my obsession of making tempeh, but he supported me anyway (and ready to laugh if it wasn't successful).

I started making the tempeh on Tuesday night. On Wednesday noon, there was no sign of mold on the peas. I started to get worried when I checked my tempeh at around 3 p.m on Wednesday. I was kinda paranoia with overfermented tempeh (read this entry) so I checked this one too often. Then the next day, woohoo...I had three packs of (literary) green tempeh! I baked one pack for dinner wanted to know how it tasted. It tasted like peas with tempeh smell.

What other legumes should I try for my next tempeh?