Appetite for Reduction ? Tamarind BBQ Tempeh & Sweet Potatoes

Simple ingredients for great food

This is my latest installment of a recipe created from the cookbook Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  I have to say that this is a must have for vegetarians/vegans. Those of you who are not a vegetarian or a vegan pick it up as well and be creative on Meatless Monday or Tempeh Thursday or Seitan Saturday.  You get the point in that this book will open you up to countless ways to use vegetables in your household.

On Sunday I had a long bike ride of 3 hours and 40 minutes and all along the ride I was thinking about what I could make for dinner and I remembered this recipe.  Now I did not remember all the ingredients but a few days prior I had taken a picture of the page with the recipe as a way to remember to get the ingredients.

I had to go to two grocery stores but that was ok as both were on the way home and I was only looking for Tamarind Concentrate which the normal grocery store did not have, but the second more organic store had it and I was in business.

I had never used Tamarind Concentrate before so I did not know what to expect but all the other ingredients were everyday items and that is what is key to this cookbook.  The recipes don’t call for out of the way ingredients but instead call for those items that you can find just about anywhere.

After I laid out all the ingredients I could not wait to eat.  I was getting hungry and I had not even heated up a pan yet.  Everything staring at me was delicious.  Sweet Potatoes, Tempeh, Ginger, Garlic, Soy Sauce, Maple Syrup, Olive Oil….how can this go wrong?

All the ingredients were on the cutting board and was prepared to feast.  The best part, as I said, was it was simple.  Preheat the oven, combine all the ingredients and bake.  Well, as each ingredient went into the pan the hardest part was not eating it all raw since it smelled so good.

Ready for the oven

After combining all the ingredients I put the pan in the oven and within 10 minutes the entire house was filled with the aroma of good eating.  The sweet potatoes were darkening and the tempeh was also getting a nice color to it.  The sauce was bubbling and I just knew it was perfect.  That is until I read the recipe again and I was supposed to cover it with tinfoil.  Uh-Oh.  Well I tossed the foil on the pan and went ahead and made some polenta.  The author suggests a polenta stuffing but I know that my wife likes her polenta with balsamic vinegar so that is how I prepared it.

After 25 minutes in the oven I removed the foil and tossed everything to coat and I was hoping it wouldn’t take another 30 minutes, but I read the recipe again and it calls for 30 minutes of more baking.

What do you do when you have 30 minutes to bake and the polenta is already done?  Well you make homemade fig bars.

After I assembled the bars and prepared them for the oven the tempeh and sweet potatoes were done and ready to eat.

I spooned out two plates and added the polenta as well and I will say that this was delicious.  My first time using Tamarind concentrate but certainly not the last.  It added that little bit of stickiness to the meal that made it feel as if you were eating something that was BBQ’d with a ketchup based sauce.

In my book this was a home run and will be made again as it was simple ingredients, simple preparation, simple food but magnificent taste.

Tamarind BBQ Tempeh with Sweet Potato and Polenta

Grade:  A++++++++