Morning Kitchen: vegan with tempeh and dill potatoes

Mike's Recipe Box is getting a re-brand/re-launch! The first change is the title and the content re-focus.  This blog has been the tool I've used to document the things I've made that pass the family taste test. We're keeping that focus but shifting more to things to help you find you own inspiration, while amping up the taste test part so you, dear reader, know the ideas are solid. Flavor story, textures and tastiness are our new measuring sticks. We hope you find this is more useful and it inspires you share your input!

I am by far the first to rise in the morning and love to  putter around in the pre-dawn hours and get the day's cooking projects prepped. Usually that means sparking up the moka pot and turning leftover ingredients into a breakfast burrito. This daily habit of mine is what inspired the change of name to 1000 Burritos. 

We love to do theme weeks around here- defining a parameter really jump starts the creative process. It's the lead up to Father's Day 2023 and the week's recipe theme has been Middle Eastern. For shawarma night, I offered the vegetarian option of harissa bbq tempeh, and for kofta night I made garlic dill potatoes. These two ingredients really sing in this burrito and make an unforgettable, delicious combination.

Harissa BBQ tempeh

This came together really quickly and despite some really unique flavors, has proven to be a very flexible leftover ingredient for all kinds of things: salads, wraps and even this breakfast burrito.

Ingredients

Tempeh brick, cut into approx. 3/4" fingers

2 tgl neutral cooking oil

Spice blend: 1 tsp of each:  crushed rosemary, coriander powder, chili powder, cumin, 1/4 tsp turmeric

Harissa BBQ sauce: half and half prepared BBQ sauce and harissa sauce; or 1 tbl harissa spice blend, 1/8 cup ketchup, 1/8 cup yellow mustard, 1 tbl molasses or pomegranate molasses, 1 tbl neutral oil like avocado

Method

Steam the tempeh for 10 minutes. set aside to cool.

Assemble the spice mix and BBQ sauce.

In a skillet preheated on medium (I prefer cast iron for the crust),  add the oil and then the tempeh. Turning every minute, fry until all sides are starting to brown. Turn heat down to low.

Remove the tempeh to a small mixing bowl. Add the spice mix. Stir to coat.  Return tempeh to pan, and continue to cook, turning onto each side every 15 seconds. Spices will become fragrant. 

Turn off heat. Add sauce to mixing bowl, and toss tempeh to coat.

Dill Garlic roast potatoes

Ingredients

 2 lbs medium Yukon Gold potatoes

bunch fresh dill

2 garlic cloves, peeled

olive oil

1 tsp salt

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut the potatoes: quartered length-wise, then cut into four segments.

add the bunch of dill, salt and garlic to a food processor. start blending on low. drizzle in enough olive oil to mix into a loose sauce.

Combine the potatoes and sauce in a mixing bowl. Scrape onto a half sheet (either non-stick or a silpat on top).

Roast for 20 minutes. Flip potatoes over and roast another 20 minutes until potatoes are nicely browned.

To assemble the leftover breakfast burrito:

1/2 red onion, diced

1/2 cup red pepper, diced

beans of your choice

shredded cheese

taco sauce

Method:

Heat a stovetop griddle or iron skillet on medium heat.

saute the onions and peppers. cut the tempeh and potatoes into smaller bite-size pieces. add them to the pan and continue sauteing until everything is warm. Set mix aside. 

Heat tortillas on griddle. Flip and add the cheese and beans. 

Spoon on the grilled mix. 

Add a little taco sauce to the filling and roll. Tortillas should be nicely crisp and starting to brown.

Hope you like the rebrand and the burritos!

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Gerd-friendly breakfast burritos

 If you're a regular reader around here you know I live for breakfast burritos. Problem is I've suffered from GERD for years now and spicy foods can cause flareups. So can some ingredients, like my beloved onions, and cooking methods like frying and sauteing.  I went through a phase of frying potatoes and onions on a cast-iron grill pan for the browning. Every burrito gave me indigestion and I questioned every ingredient but the potatoes. It's the oil, and the oils that are transformed by the heat. Recently I've gotten good results when I follow a low-fat, high-carb diet, vegan except for eggs. No meat, no dairy, no processed oils. Lots of vegetables, mushrooms, and grains. So here's a breakfast burrito that is tasty and filling and works to calm your inner fire too.

Ingredients

--Potatoes. Figure one small potato for each burrito, one medium potato for two, one large potato for three.

--whole grain tortillas

--one pound of dry beans

--one onion, skin removed

--two cloves garlic, skin removed

--four bay leaves

--1/2 green bell pepper, diced 

--1/2 cup corn kernels

--teaspoon each of thyme, cumin and paprika

--one bunch cilantro

Method

Required equipment: large pot with lid, stovetop grill pan

The night before, soak the beans in water. Rinse in the morning. Add fresh water so it is at least 3 inches above the beans.

Cook the beans on low with the bay leaves, half the onion (whole. Store the other half, or finely dice for burritos if fresh onion doesn't bother you), and the two cloves of garlic. About an hour in, add half the bunch of cilantro, whole. Cut up the other half and reserve.

When beans are soft, add the spices. Let it sit in the pot to absorb the flavor, about an hour.

At this time bake some medium russet or gold potatoes if you choose to bake them.

Remove the bay leaves and cilantro stems from the beans. Let the potatoes cool.

Cut a baked potato into cubes, or microwave a whole medium potato for 3-4 minutes until tender, then cut it into cubes when it's cool enough to handle.

On the grill pan, let the green pepper cook a few minutes. Add the corn kernels, salt and pepper to taste, then set aside.

Dry grill tortillas until starting to brown. Warm the tortillas before serving if necessary. 

To a warm tortilla, add any cheese you like, I use a commercial vegan shredded cheese usually.

Add some potato, drained beans. Sprinkle on reserved cilantro.

That's basically it. You can add a sauce, if you can tolerate it. If not, a spice mix of smoked paprika, crushed thyme and oregano, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper is nice. you can toast that on the stovetop grill for a couple of seconds after the tortillas are finished. 

I avoid onion and garlic powder as those give me problems whereas onions and garlic stewed low and slow, as we did above with the beans, don't.

Fold the ends in and then tuck the filling into the middle as you roll the closer end away from you. If using a fresh tortilla, take it oout of the pan before it is browned, tuck the sides in like forming a pocket and finish on the hot grill until it browns lightly.

Hope you enjoy!

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Why I gave up social media and what I'm doing instead

Summers I get up early, walk the dog if he's game, and then go water the garden. It's a ritual that I observe perhaps not religiously, but I have spent an awful lot of early mornings doing it. This fine sunny Summer morning was no different. I was doomscrolling social media while filling up buckets of water to pour on the tomatoes when my wife came out- which surprised me- to tell me the burning I'll smell when I come back inside is the pan I left on. Totally distracted, after making my breakfast with it, I just let it go.

We all see signs of how distracted society is around us. Since I commute to a job to another town one day a week, and am not within walking distance of essential services, driving is the example I see most often and glaringly. Now, when I approach a four-way stop and no one is taking a turn, I know why: at least one driver was filling that yawning chasm of nothing to do for 10 seconds with their phone. It happens every day at every intersection. It happens at street lights. it happens in exit and entrance ramps on highways. It happens in parking lots and driveways. No one is really paying all that much attention, anymore.

One of the most brilliant inventions, I've always thought, was the driving simulator. It's apparently a relic of the past, from what my kids say. It let you preview the feeling of driving before even getting behind an actual steering wheel. Your job was simple: stop at stop signs, keep the car on the road, don't hit a pedestrian or other car. And it was a challenge. Its most important role was to ingrain behavior. I think our phones and social media have broken this pattern for so much of our behavior. It's making everyday experiences awkward, difficult, even dangerous.

There was nothing in particular I was distracted by this morning. That's the scary part. i was not thinking "gotta get back to doomscrolling." I just don't have the concentration I used to have. And as someone who works in the IT field, that is very concerning. I speculate that it's what Alzheimer's or dementia might feel like. If I can't maintain focus long enough to turn a burner off, what will I be forgetting to do next?

There is an area of study which seeks to improve how you engage with reality, here and now: that is mindfulness. Mindfulness is all about foregoing all else in favor of the one thing you are focused on. It could be reading a book, sewing a button- or cooking an egg on the stove. The key is daily practice.

I notice not many people are talking about mindfulness on social media. Is it even possible in a world on fast-forward, seeking to grab your eyeballs in a couple of seconds, literally as you can't wait to swipe away and on to the next couple of seconds of entertainment?

I've read the highly recommended How to Break up With Your Phone by Catherine Price. I've taken the intial step of removing all social media from my phone. But I am still at the beginning of the process. Next comes the hard part of rebuilding my attention span. The laundry list, according to the article "How to Reclaim Your Attention Span" over at Experience Life, is daily meditation, body scan exercises, breathing exercises, and the bane of all IT workers- monotasking. The column also encourages "deep work-" like reading a book- and discourages "shallow work-" like mindlessly scrolling social media.

So join me, won't you, as I try to rebuild my life, one book, one pan, one day at a time.