Tempeh cutlets with creamy tomato-pepper spaghetti

One of my new year's resolutions is to make at least one recipe from every cookbook I own.

I bought American Vegan Kitchen for the appetizers-- namely the Spicy Balsamic Maple Wingz. Well I made that recipe; it was one of those ones where you have to make three other foundational recipes first, and the whole thing takes more than one day. It was delicious, but it was also the meal that sealed the deal-- Erik had a bad reaction to it and right afterwards we learned that he is gluten-intolerant.

I hadn't picked up the book since then, because everything seemed very seitan (and gluten) -centric. Looking for something that was easy to make substitutions on, the tempeh cutlets stood out. Only the flour (I used potato starch), soy sauce (wheat-free tamari) and pasta (quinoa-corn pasta) needed replacing. The recipe calls for a can of tomato sauce-- of course I had to make a big batch of my own, and I hadn't prepared beforehand by marinating the tempeh, so this meal took just over two hours to make.

Overall it was good, but I probably wouldn't use the recipe for the creamy tomato-pepper sauce again-- it's just sauteed peppers, soy milk, and tomato sauce. The tempeh cutlets were nice, but I ran out of red wine vinegar and used balsamic for the remainder, so they were sweeter than they should've been.

My interest in this book has revived, and I will definitely try de-glutening some of the other recipes.