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Hot-Sauce Glazed Tempeh

Our month of eating vegan has gone really well. Tammy has tried all sorts of new recipe and made some really great meals. This past weekend I wanted to cook something but I wanted something specific. I wanted to use my Big Green Egg and I wanted something spicy. For some reason eating vegan has resulted in me seeking out spicy food more than ever. The flavors are just awesome.

I paged through the Veganomicon and found the recipe for Hot-Sauce Glazed Tempeh. We had some tempeh that we didn’t have plans for so I went for it. It had the promised spice, and the preferred method of cooking it is on a grill.

I made the marinade which was really easy. Boiled the tempeh for 10 minutes and then let it soak for an hour. I fired up the Big Green Egg and got it up to 450 °F with the cast iron grid and cooked the tempeh with some nice searing and caramelization. I served it with a side of Messsy Rice (vegan alternative to Dirty Rice). The result looked nice and had great flavor. There wasn’t a lot of “glaze” to it though, so I think the next time I may add a little extra pepper and a touch of sugar to the marinade for basting on the grill.

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Bummed that Origins Coffee is done for the season. Dude makes a killer espresso. Hope he pops back up soon! ☕️

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Ratatouille on Big Green Egg

Our month of eating vegan has a lot of new challenges. One of the biggest is what to do with my cherished Big Green Egg’s. I liked that ratatouille is naturally vegan, and it seemed that cooking it on the Big Green Egg would be really good. I followed the Ratatouille’s Ratatouille recipe on Smitten Kitchen and instead of putting it in the oven I put it on the large Big Green Egg set up for indirect cooking.

It came out really good with a nice, light smoke flavor infused as well. I served it on a bed of couscous.

Vegan? Check. Grill? Check. Delicious? Check.

When it comes to grills and eating vegan there isn’t much overlap. However, the Big Green Egg is unique since it can do anything an oven can do, but better.

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Dolphin Tale

Tammy, Mazie and I went to see Dolphin Tale tonight.

Tammy and I both agreed that this movie was about the most family friendly movie you could make. It was nice, heartwarming, had a dolphin in it. What more could you do really? Check out See Winter for more information on Winter the Dolphin.

Plus, we tried Tyler staying with one of the sitters before going to sleep. We hadn’t done that before and it worked great.

Before the movie we had dinner at Big Bowl where I had the best vegan meal I’ve enjoyed during our vegan challenge — Kung Pao Tofu with Spinach, substitute brown rice for the noodles and add heat. Plant power!

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Anyone have a phonetic spelling for my last name that would help Siri? I can’t get the hard g. 😕

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On hold for AT&T to start the cross-upgrade process. Me: iPhone 4 → iPhone 4S. Tammy: iPhone 3GS → iPhone 4.

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Perfect.

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Dennis Ritchie’s passing makes me want to go back and re-read The C Programming Language.

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Making Soup in Vitamix

One of the things that wowed Tammy about the Vitamix was that you can make soup in it. Real soup. Not some cold Gazpacho. Honest to goodness hot soup. If you run the Vitamix on high for several minutes the blending action will bring the water to a boil!

She put all the ingredients in the blender, turned it on for several minutes and we had some nice, hot soup. Here is proof with my infrared thermometer.

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Beautiful Jacks

Homelink Entertainment is doing all the low voltage work in our remodel. One of my goals in the project has been to have cutting edge infrastructure in a 1920’s house. Thanks to the meticulous detail of Ben from Homelink, it is happening. Look at this plate! Labeled Cat 5 runs down to the rack, proper speaker terminations, coax in a separate coax patch field. Awesome.