Tempeh, Kale, and Brussels Sprouts served with Tri-Color Quinoa (No Added Fat)

A friend, who is joining me for the American Dance Festival show tonight, was possibly coming for dinner, depending on her schedule, and she doesn't eat onions, peppers, or much spice. I prepared a meal in case she could make it. I turns out she couldn't, but I took a serving for her to enjoy for lunch tomorrow. Here is what I did.

Ingredients

• 4 ounces tempeh cut into 1/2" cubes
• 2 medium carrots cut into 1/4" slices
• Cup of broccoli florets
• Medium Japanese eggplant, cut into 3/8" slices
• 12 Brussels sprouts, halved
• 6 cremini (or other) mushrooms cut into 3/8" slices
• 1 cup spinach
• 1t ginger, finely chopped
• 4 leaves kale, stems removed, then leaves roughly hand torn into approximately 3/4" squares
• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 1/8 t salt

If I were cooking for myself, I'd also add half a cup of onion cut into 3/8" slivers, a diced clove of garlic, a bit of turmeric and ground cumin, and a vegan bouillon cube.

Process

1. I put all the ingredients into the Instant Pot pressure cooker and set on a 3 minute high pressure cycle.
2. When I was ready to serve, I slowly let the steam out and served.

I also made tri-color quinoa. I sprinkled hemp seeds atop tomato slices (but took the photograph here before adding the seeds).

Results

The dish was good but, to my onion- and spice- preferring palate, a bit bland. I added hot sauce to my serving. This was also my experiment with pressure cooking tempeh. I liked the results with tofu from the day before yesterday, but the tempeh wasn't as positive. It really just tasted like hot tempeh, like I might use in a pasta sauce. It was fine, but the pressure cooking didn't seem to add to the flavor or change the texture of the tempeh at all. It will be good to see what my

Ideas for the future

Even if serving as a no-spice dish with no onion or garlic, I could enhance the dish with some fresh lemon sage or oregano. A little more salt could be helpful. I'd make this with tofu (if not cooking for my wife, who avoids tofu, which upsets her stomach) or maybe lentils. Onion and broth certainly would improve the dish.

I'm glad that I experimented with tempeh. Perhaps tempeh would be more successful if first marinated and then pressure cooked in the marinade. I hope to try that sometime soon.