Stick to your ribz

When I was a girl in the deep south the phrase “Stick to your ribs” was generally used to describe heavy, stodgy, meaty comfort food. Those days have (thankfully) passed for me. But sometimes I get a craving for that down home goodness, but without all the yuck that goes with it. Enter tempeh sausage. It is not actually sausage or even a fake meat but rather just good ole fermented tempeh with lots of spices that give it a savoury feel. The recipe is courtesy of the people from the Post Punk Kitchen (PPK to those in the secret society of vegans) and their wonderful cookbook Veganomicon.

Veganomicon Tempeh Sausage Crumbles

8 oz package tempeh
1 tablespoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried margoram or oregano
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
2 teaspoons garlic, minced
2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
juice of 1/2 a lemon

Slice up your tempeh into bits and then boil for 10 minutes in a beefy type stock—I use a glug of tamari soy sauce and a tsp marmite. This helps remove any bitterness and gives it a nice flavour. Then drain and fry in a skillet with the above ingredients. Easy peasy. I serve with potatoes and veg. In this case steamed broccoli.

But there must be gravy. “Sausage” and potatoes require gravy. And so God said “Let there be gravy” and He invented cashew gravy and saw that it was good.

Cashew Gravy adapted from VegWeb

    2 cups hot water, divided
    1/2 cup cashews
    2 tablespoon tamari soy sauce
    1 tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot
    2 teaspoon onion powder
     1 TB nutritional  yeast
     
Set aside 1 cup of hot water. Put everything else in a blender and blend very well. My vitamix does it in about 1 minute. But others with a blender without a 2 horsepower motor may need to soak the cashews to soften and blend longer. . Add 2nd cup of water. Pour into a pan and heat until thickened.

That’s it! Down home cookin’  without sufferin’. Genius.