Yummy Dinner & Dessert!

Okay, so I tried a few new recipes and they both turned out great.  The first thing I made was Peanut Butter Cookies from the cookbook How it All Vegan.  I am a good baker naturally, so the transition to a vegan recipe was really easy.  The only new ingredient I used was Egg Replacer. I tried to be good and cut the sugar down to 3/4 cup (it was supposed to be 1 cup) and I really should have made it with the full amount of sugar.  The cookies were delicious (as Kayleigh can attest), but the extra sugar would have made them even better.  I made a correction by rolling the dough in sugar prior to baking the second batch and it made a big difference.  Note to self... follow the recipe as it is written in the future.   

My next item was Spicy Tempeh from the Veganomics Cookbook.  It was the first time I worked with tempeh, so I was not sure what to expect.  The first package I opened was moldy (even though it was supposed to be good until February), but I did not let that deter me.  I dug around in the fridge for a good package of tempeh and got to work on the recipe.  Overall the recipe was easy to prepare, it just took a little while to marinate the tempeh (45 minutes).  So I decided to use the extra time to prepare the side dishes, Coconut Rice and Sesame Green Beans with cashews.  From start to eating the process took about 75 minutes (much longer than my usual time of 15-20 minutes), but when I took the first bite, it was all worth it.  It was super yummy and the tempeh had the texture of steak/fish.  I will definitely work with tempeh again in the future.