Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Vegan MoFo: Eggplant Tempeh Potpie (E is for Eggplant)

Brief post today... my house is full of eggplant enthusiasts, so it was the natural choice for the letter E. An obvious choice, some might say, but when you see what we have in store in the next couple of letters, I think maybe you'll let us slide for being a little lazy with E...

It's Wednesday, aka farmer's market day, so a bonus bonus picture today. Here's our farmer's market haul. It will not give you basically any hints about what else we're having this week, heh.

Farmer's market haul 10/5/11

I've been poring over The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, looking for something to make this week that would fit into my alphabet challenge. VT has some other interesting eggplant stuff in it, but when I saw the potpie recipe, it called out to me-- it looked so fast and easy and yum. So I went ahead with it.

From experience, I know eggplant doesn't often end up being visible in a dish after cooking, so I took a picture of it still in its recognizable state:

Eggplant

Then while sauteeing with tempeh, sauce, and other stuff:

Eggplant etc cooking

The potpie just out of the oven:

Eggplant tempeh pot pie topping

And yes, it definitely IS the same casserole dish that's shown up in 3 out of 5 of my MoFo posts so far. That thing gets around! (We are not yet done the dill mac'n'cheez; I took some of it for lunch today and will take some more for lunch tomorrow. For the record, it's a bit greasy when it reheats, alas. Very tasty though.)

And here's a piece in my dish:

Eggplant tempeh pot pie

You'll have to excuse the smudges around the edge of the plate; while I was photographing this, the Emperor was twirling the bowl around and grabbing chunks of tempeh out and eating them. Well, anything to get him to eat some dinner, I guess...

So, about this recipe: it is really, really, really, really easy. I started out with an hour to prep and cook and went at a very leisurely pace, and it got done just as my time ran out. Taste: okay. Not spectacular. I think I'd double the fennel next time because I really liked that note-- but could barely detect it. You know I love bready things and so the biscuit top seemed like a sure win... and it WAS tasty... but I actually felt like there was too much biscuit: filling.

The Emperor seemed to like it when he was eating it off of my plate. Naturally, he refused to eat it off his own plate. J has a stomach ache and skipped dinner so he has no input.

Overall: a simple, tasty dinner, but not actually a great showcase dish for my friend the eggplant.

Your daily bonus picture. No, I don't know why he always looks so skeptical in food pictures these days. This was after he had already eaten several tempeh cubes and told me they were "really yummy, really tasty! sooooo tasty!" Who knows?

Tempeh eater

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think he is working on his future modeling career, hence the skepticism. Possibly trying out a variety of looks to see what his signature pose it? Just a theory :) P.S. LOVE the chalkboard writing! So cute... xo, Cara

coldandsleepy said...

Ha ha ha... that could be it! He has got a fantastic pout!

Anonymous said...

Start up a savings account now! Baby's on his way to making momma some money :) haha xo, Cara

Jen Treehugger said...

That potpie looks the BOMB!!!

MeShell said...

I'm such an eggplant fanatic. That sounds so tasty.

I love the picture of you farmers market haul. So veglicious.

I think I'll have to comment on the cuteness of the Emperor everytime I come here. What a sweetheart.

Vegan Fazool said...

The dough from Vegan Table is my favorite pizza dough (I use whole wheat white flour, tho). Eggplant pizza is awesome, give it a try if you have even more eggplant left over.

P.S. the letter "E" is my favorite letter :-)

xo, VF

Anonymous said...

I love your theme, you had a great idea! I like the fact that you chose eggplant for the letter E :)

Monique a.k.a. Mo said...

Eggplant and tempeh sounds like it would go great together. Your son is so cute in his skepticism.