Orange Sesame Tempeh Stir-fry

Happy Monday!  My meatless meal for the week comes from my ultimate blog-obsession, Mama Pea.  I'm serious, I'm reaching stalker-levels of obsessedness.  I love her.  And her food.  And her kids.  I want to be her best friend.  But for now, I'll settle for making her recipeas for dinner.

Vegan Stir-Fry... not a BFF, but I'll take it.

Brooke and Jack came over for dinner and I was a little worried about feeding them vegan food.  The recipe calls for tempeh.  This was my first time using it, so I didn't know what to expect.  But... worst case scenario; dinner sucks and we all go to Chipotle.

Jack kept asking to see the stir-fry.

Just happy it isn't a beet burger.

Slurp.

Brooke ♥ Meatless Monday.

Jack had his own setup of Easy Mac and apple sauce.  We let him try the stir-fry and he really liked it.  I'm telling you, the kid is a veggie-monster.  He and Mya shared three carrots before dinner.  I even have him on video saying that he likes my stir-fry better than his Easy Mac.  Now, I don't know if he was just saying that to be nice, but I'm going to go ahead and believe him. :)

Veggies?

Mmmm...

Orange Sesame Tempeh Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

• One 8 oz. package tempeh
• 3/4 c. orange juice
• 1 t. dried ginger powder
• 1 T. reduced sodium soy sauce
• 1 T. rice vinegar
• 1 t. sesame oil
• 1 t. minced garlic
• 1 T. cornstarch
• sweetener to taste (brown sugar, maple syrup, agave or stevia)
• One 12 oz. package broccoli slaw
• 1 1/2 c. baby carrots, steamed
• 1 1/2 c. snap peas, steamed
• One 5 oz. can sliced water chestnuts, drained
• 4 c. cooked brown rice
• 1/4 c. toasted almonds, chopped

Method:

• Place a pan lightly sprayed with oil or cooking spray over medium high heat. Grate or crumble tempeh into pan.
• Cook the tempeh for several minutes, until it is browned and toasty.
• Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine orange juice, ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, cornstarch and sweetener. Whisk to remove any lumps.
• To sautéed tempeh, add broccoli slaw, carrots, snap peas and water chestnuts.
• Stir-fry veggies until the broccoli is tender, then add the sauce.
• Cook for an additional minute or two, until sauce has thickened, and made a delicious sweet glaze over the veggies.
• Serve over brown rice and garnish with almonds.

And the verdict on the tempeh?  Honestly, I couldn't really taste it.  In fact, the whole dish kind of lacked flavor.  I was really surprised.  I kept adding hot sauce to my plate to try to up the flavor.  Don't get me wrong, it was good, and really healthy and filling... and I'll still be stalking Mama Pea... it just felt like it was missing something. 

After dinner there were brownies... which I should probably have Brooke post the recipe for because they were A-MAZING!  Girl knows how to bake.

After the brownies we took a little walk to the park.  Jack banished Ari to his crate, so Mya got to live out her fantasy of being an only dog for the evening.

Cousins.

Sometimes it takes two to walk Mya.

My favorite people.

All of my faves... minus Ari.

The park was a shockingly pleasant experience when we weren't constantly yanked around by Ari or trying to keep him from dominating children.  But still, he was missed.  But not by Mya.

Happy {meatless} Monday!