Tempeh Tacos

The other night I came home from the gym, it was after 8, I was starving and I really wanted to use up the cabbage I had in my fridge. I make a delicious cabbage and potato chowder, but I didn’t have the ingredients for that. After a quick survey of my fridge I noticed I had some tempeh that needed to be used up and decided to just wing it. I ended up making some so quick, easy and delicious that I had to recreate it tonight!

First chop 1/2 of a block of tempeh up into small pieces and cook in about 1tsp of olive oil. If you cook it on high this should only take 3 minutes or so. The tempeh will crumble easily as it gets heated.

Once your tempeh is browned up, add about 1/2 cup of water and a tablespoon of taco seasoning.

Next add lots of cabbage. I used about 2 cups.

You may need to add a bit more water to help the cabbage cook down, but after a few minutes it will be cooked thoroughly and look like this.

 

The first night I made it, I just ate it with some salsa out of a bowl. Tonight I decided to make it into tacos.

 

I used a Joseph’s Lavash wrap, cut it into two and had two mini tacos.. or technically they may be burritos, but whatever, they were delicious!

With some extra filling in the middle! This was SO filling and literally took me only 10 minutes to make.

Have you ever tried tempeh? I LOVE IT! It’s so versatile. Check out some ohter way to eat it.

Sweet Potato Tempeh Hash

Tempeh Stir-Fry

Tempeh + FBD

This post is going to be a bit all over the place, you’ve been warned! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I sure did, but didn’t take any pictures because sometimes I am a bad blogger. On Thanksgiving morning I even ran my first official 5k race. It was a New Years resolution to run one, and even though I have run a 4 mile race and a 10k, I am very happy to be able to officially check the 5k off! It was a super small and FREEZING race, but I finished in 32 minutes and I am extremely proud of myself. After my 10k I haven’t been running very much so I even surprised myself just by finishing. All in all it was a great time.

So while I was home my mom had me read about this new diet that she is trying called the Flat Belly Diet. Have you heard about it? It’s actually extremely interesting and something I could really get behind. You see, since I stopped weight watchers in May, I have kept all of the weight off, but I have really been struggling to find balance. I find a lot of the time I don’t eat enough during the day and then overeat at night. I pretty much started this behavior when I started weight watchers because I didn’t want to eat all of my points during the day and have none at night. I’ve been doing this for quite some time and I just feel like enough is enough. I eat quality food all day, just not enough, which leads me to eat less quality food in the evening. On the FBD you eat 4 meals a day that are around 400 calories each and that include a monounsaturated fat. The meals should also be around 4 hours apart from each other. Monounsaturated fats are nuts, olive oil, avocado, olives and dark chocolate, um, you know, my favorite foods! The MUFA’s are supposed to keep you full and if you’re full you won’t overeat. I like this because I realize how often I am hungry because I am not eating enough. For instance, for breakfast I usually have 1/3 cup oats w. half a banana and 1 TBS of PB. The FBD suggests having 1/2 cup of oats with banana and 2 TBS of PB. I’m not going to go on the actual diet right now, they suggest that you eat meals off of their meal plan and not create your own meals which is what I have been doing, but I am going to try and follow the basic principles and see how it goes.

I love tempeh. I told you this post would be all of the place, but seriously tempeh is SO good. I have made two tempeh meals into FBD meals, they were delicious and kept me full for a few hours.

Sweet Potato and Tempeh Hash with Eggs.

 

I can’t share the recipe because it’s from the cook book, but I used 1/2 of a sweet potato 1/2 a block of tempeh, some onions, BBQ sauce and an egg. This was awesome and I plan on making it a weekly weekend meal. I also served this up with a piece of toast and some avocado, I was supposed to add EVOO to the hash to make it a true FBD meal but decided to go the avocado route instead.

Tempeh + Veg

For this I cooked up a whole yellow squash and red pepper. Then I cooked up 1/2 block of tempeh with 1 TBS of EVOO (my MUFA!) and some bragg’s liquid amino’s. I’m actually a bit hungry so next time I would add something else to make it a little heartier.

Did you do a Turkey Trot over Thanksgiving? Have any thoughts of the FBD?

Ten Minute Dinner

Today I decided to skip the AM workout and sleep in. I did this because I hurt my tailbone and wanted to take a week off from spin to let it heal. I ended up  taking a butt and abs class after work that was KILLER. I am sure I am going to be SO sore tomorrow, but good, I deserve it! I am happy I went because it’s the first strength session I got in this month and it’s my goal to do it twice a week. After the class, I did arms so I could count it as a full body workout

Once I got home I was hungry and needed food fast. I came up with a very healthy meal that only took me ten minutes.

First I put some water on to boil for the corn. I had a bit of green pepper, onion and zucchini leftover from a dish I made earlier in the week so I quickly chopped it  and then cooked it up in a frying pan with some cooking spray and water.  Then I actually used a new type of brown rice that takes only one minute to cook. While that was cooking, I sliced up a tomato and added some feta cheese that I had to use up. After about 7 minutes every thing was ready to go!

This was a great meal because it was healthy, delicious, and came together in under 10 minutes. The only thing it was missing was protein.  I was originally going to use quinoa, but then I wanted to try the rice out so I just went with it.

Have you tried this?

Source

I think these are fairly new, but I am not sure. I saw them at the store the other night and figured why not? I had been wanting to buy brown rice for a few weeks but I don’t have the patience to cook rice for 45-50 minutes and that’s the only rice they have at whole foods. While it tasted good and was ready in just a minute, it was $2 for two servings and it did have added salt and oils. I am not positive I would buy it again but I do think it’s a great idea for people on the go.

In other news, I am looking for a weight loss buddy to bond with as I try and lose another 30ish pounds. If it’s something you’d be interested in please email me at ablake586@gmail.com or send me a tweet. I got the idea from a fellow blogger who seems to be doing well having a pal to bond with. One of the reasons I think I was so successful at weight loss before was because of the weight watchers meetings. I had people to bond with who could relate to my successes and my slip ups and now I’m alone and it’s not going so well. I need the extra push!