Vegan Comfort Food

Back in the day (as in less than a year ago) Joey and I used to be big fans of chicken nuggets.  My opinion on them since has done a 180 but that doesn’t mean I don’t still crave some crunchy breading and ketchup.

Solution = Tempeh Crispy Strips.  But we’ll get to that later.

Let’s rewind to breakfast time, which involved another pre-run GM of banana, vanilla almond milk, spinach, ice and a Skirt Chaser glass 🙂

I’m officially drinking a GM before my half marathon (which is in less than a month, ahh!) because they make me feel so so great and taste pretty good too 🙂

Speaking of feeling so so great, that is exactly how I felt during my 5 mile run.

• Mile splits: 9:49, 9:20, 9:28, 9:15, 8:43!!
• Total: 46:41

Came home and grabbed some dates and cashews.  Tuesdays are weird because I eat lunch so early and it really throws off my schedule when I have to throw running and breakfast in before lunch at noon.  Hence the quick breakfast and weird snacking.

After a lunch failure yesterday I was ready to redeem myself and bring enough filling food to last me until school and work were through!

Leftover clam chowduh x2

I picked a piece of shell out of my mouth at one point and tasted some grit at a few different points (gross?) but I thoroughly enjoyed this soup anyways…maybe my standards are too low?

Plus 1/2 a peach.  Half because I couldn’t bear to use up my last peach so early in the week!

Stuffed.  And it felt so good.

Class is so much more enjoyable when you’re not distracted by hunger!

Time for a snack before work.

Check out how thick and awesome that cinnamon vanilla peanut butter is!

Followed up my apple and pb with 2 little pieces of chocolate.  This was the dark chocolate coffee crunch and crunch it I did.

Can all snacks involve chocolate?

I wish I could take credit for dinner but the truth is I left work late and was entering the first phase of hunger induced crankiness so I kindly asked Joey to take over. 

What does a hungry meat-disliker eat instead of chicken nuggets?  Tempeh Crispy Strips, of course!

Tempeh Crispy Strips:

• 1 8-oz. package tempeh
• 3/4 cup non-dairy milk (I Joey used vanilla almond and luckily you couldn’t tell that it wasn’t plain)
• 1T vinegar of lemon juice
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2t garlic powder
• 1/2t dried oregano
• 1/2t dried basil
• 1/2t salt
• black pepper to your liking
• 1/8t cayenne pepper or as Joey says “a couple sprinkles”

1. Mix milk and vin and let sit 10 minutes
2. Cut tempeh into strips
3. Add strips to milk mixture and marinate for ~15 minutes, flipping halfway through
4. Mix panko, spices and flour
5. Preheat oven to 350*
6. Coat the strips in the breading.  It’s a little hard to get the breading to stick.  We had lots of breading leftover but the strips still tasted plenty crispy!
7. Spray strips with cooking spray to help the breading stick
8. Place strips on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes on each side.

I decided to put myself to good use and cooked up some broccoli in a little olive oil plus salt, pepper, garlic powder and sucanat.  The sugary taste really worked well!

I thought the tempeh strips would be weird.  Sometimes I’m really turned off by the taste of tempeh.  This was not one of those times.  These were so yummy.  They trump Tyson if you ask me.  Joey might answer differently, but what does he know.

I’m thinking tempeh crispy strips plus vegan mac and cheese would be the best healthy comfort meal EVER! 

What’s your idea of comfort food?

P.S. It’s Wedneday already and I for one am not complaining.