bike trip to fort collins

Over Labor Day weekend we went on a bike vacation to Fort Collins (50 miles each way). We rode Saturday morning, stayed overnight Saturday and Sunday nights, and rode again on Monday morning.

On our way there, as we got closer and closer to downtown Fort Collins, we encountered more and more costumed people on bikes. It turned out that Tour de Fat was going on that very day. We caught the tail end of things but at least we got to see a giant puppet of Tony Danza give the crowd a hug!

In addition to New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins has Odell Brewing Co and Fort Collins Brewery. After checking out Tour de Fat we headed over to Odell's to sample 12 of their beers. Aww yeah!

It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that we ate tempeh for every meal. Avogadro's Number makes their own tempeh which they serve in their restaurant and distribute across town (picture from the Fort Collins Food Co-op).

We ate at many veg friendly restaurants. One of the restaurants we ate at was Tasty Harmony. We were excited by their raw menu items so we got the raw vegan cheeseburger with onion triangles and sprouted chickpea hummus followed by a slice of raw coconut cream pie. We decided it would be fun to start preparing more raw foods so you might be seeing more of that kind of thing around here.

Other than eating and drinking in Fort Collins, we mostly just relaxed and meandered. We happened upon a bike show in an art gallery and a film at Lyric Cinema - an independent movie theater. Maybe someday Boulder will have an independent movie theater...

On our ride home, we slowly approached what at first was a funny little cloud behind a mountain. Later the cloud consumed the entire horizon. It was from the wild fire in the mountains just west of Boulder. So spectacular and solemn!

homemade tempeh

Earlier this week we made tempeh with some friends. I described the temperature controller we used in a previous post. The rest of the process included grinding, de-hulling, cooking, drying, and packaging.

So how did it turn out? Well, it was a bit "ripe"... We didn't get any photos, but the tempeh cakes were covered in white and black fuzz and smelled strongly of ammonia. The tempeh was mostly salvagable (including our experimental half-turtle bean batch). We cut off the exterior fuzz and fried the interiors until the smell wasn't very noticable.

We're not exactly sure what caused the "ripeness", but it was probably because, at the start, we had trouble maintaining the 85°F required with 6W (oops, I should've done a load calc on the cooler!) so we had to add some Christmas lights for extra heat. This caused the heat to be a bit uneven, so the tops were "done" while the bottoms were not yet solid. Oh well, we'll get better with practice!

As you can see in the before incubation photo below, we used banana leaves as the wrapper, as is traditional in Indonesia. I think next time, we'll try plastic bags because they allow you to check done-ness more easily.

Lessons Learned:

• Make sure you have enough heat to keep the incubator/cooler at 85°F.
• Put heat source at the bottom of the incubator.
• Put tempeh cakes in the fridge to slow/stop at first sign of done-ness, as they'll continue to grow in the fridge until they get cold enough.
• Plastic bags make checking done-ness easier (helpful for inexperienced tempeh makers like ourselves).
• The half-soybean, half-black bean batch worked fine, but the resulting cakes were a bit more crumbly than the all-soybean variety.

Our friends who lived in Indonesia for a year cooked a tempeh feast. They made a variety of delicious dishes: oseng-oseng, tempe and tofu bacem, sweet potato, kale, and tempeh stew, and fried tempeh with sambal terong (spicy eggplant salsa).

The sandwich above is fried tempeh with sauerkraut and a peanut sauce.

temperature controller

We finally got around to making a batch of tempeh. In order to maintain the proper temperature for incubating it in a cooler, we came up with this control device made from a spare thermostat, a light bulb, and a 120V to 24V doorbell transformer (thanks Jack!). All of which are scrap parts that can be attained inexpensively.

Most home heating and cooling system thermostats require 24V, so this makes the transformer necessary. At 24V, a 60W incandescent lamp will use 6W, which is close to the 7W light bulb recommended by the tempeh culture instructions.

The thermostat we used only goes up to 82°F, whereas incubation is supposed to be in the 85-90°F range, but hopefully it works out! We also added some thermal mass (water) to the container to moderate the temperature swings.

Off the shelf options include:

reptile terrarium temperature controller (60-105°F)

brewing temperature contoller (20-80°F)

Or get the deluxe Fridge/Fermenter Controller from Holy Scrap Hot Springs when it is ready!

The reptile controller would not be good for controlling refrigeration as it isn't designed with the proper hysteresis to prevent wear and tear on the compressor. However, you could get away with using a peltier/thermoelectric refrigerator for cooling.

Update: The 6W wasn't enough to keep the temperature up, so we switched to a 75W lamp (9W) plus 11-16W of uncontrolled Christmas lights, which let us get up to 90°F.

boulder bourguignon

It is sad to see good restaurants close. One restaurant that I am missing these days is Sunflower Restaurant in downtown Boulder. Though it was a tad expensive, it served delicious, organic food that had a flavor profile to match the price (unlike some fancy restaurants). Just the other day, I had a craving for their "Boulder Bourguignon" so I attempted to recreate it. Do you have any favorite restaurants/dishes that you miss?

Bourguignon Ingredients:
16 oz. seitan, torn up bites
8 oz. tempeh, crumbled
6 T. soy sauce
6 T. maple syrup
2 T. vegan margarine
2 T. olive oil
liquid smoke
black pepper
2 T. flour
8 oz. yellow potato, cubed
8 oz. beet, peeled and cubed
4 oz. carrot, sliced
3 c. red wine
2-3 c. veggie broth
1 T. tomato paste
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t. thyme
1 bay leaf
salt
8 oz. pearl onions
1 T. vegan margarine
1 T. olive oil
thyme
salt
black pepper
1/2 c. veggie broth
4 oz. small mushrooms

Creamy Polenta Ingredients:
8 c. water
2 c. coarse corn meal
2 T. vegan margarine
2 t. salt

If you don't know how, making seitan at home is super easy and cheap. I will post about the process sometime soon.

Heat seitan and tempeh in soy sauce, maple syrup, margarine, oil, and liquid smoke over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Turn the heat down to low and toss the seitan and tempeh in flour and black pepper. Let it cook for a few minutes. Transfer the seitan and tempeh to a 9x13 baking dish and add the potatoes, beets, carrots, red wine, veggie broth, tomato paste, garlic, thyme, bay leaf and salt. Mix. Cover and bake at 350 degrees F for 2 hours. Stir up the mixture every 30 minutes or so. You can add additional veggie broth if things start to dry out. Your goal is to have liquid covering everything.

30 minutes before the bourguignon finishes in the oven, saute pearl onions in oil, margarine, salt, pepper, and thyme until browned. Add 1/2 c. veggie brother and simmer with cover for 20 minutes. Add the mushrooms to the onions and continue to cook. When you take the bourguignon out of the oven, stir in the onions and mushrooms

Start the water boiling for the creamy polenta 30 minutes before the bourguignon comes out of the over. Once the water is boiling, stir in the coarse corn meal. Continue to stir for 20 minutes. Add margarine and salt.

Serve the bourguignon next to or on top of the creamy polenta and enjoy!!