Let’s start from the beginning shall we? I enjoyed a nice little Saturday with a couple of my girls mainly consisting of an impromptu trip to Gouveia Vineyards in Wallingford, CT. We thought it was supposed to rain all day, so when the sun decided to peek out, we jumped at the opportunity. It was just beautiful!
It was so nice to just unwind and chat it up while doing an excellent job of people watching. People watching is one of my all time favorite hobbies. Humans are such interesting creatures….
Moving on! So after the winery, we weren’t quite ready to have the festivities end, so we decided to head back to J’s place. Upon arriving, she whipped this out of the fridge.
Now, being baby vegans, neither of us had ever had tempeh and I was a little apprehensive to say the least. How could anything replace bacon? I mean, honestly, how? Didn’t God create bacon because he wanted us to be happy? We dove in together and decided to make BLTs or TLT – Tempeh, lettuce and tomato.
It smelled just like she was whipping up some bacon. It looks slightly different though as one would expect.
But when you combine that with this:
And put it on two pieces of toasted Ezekiel bread, add some Earth Balance vegan mayo, and a little salt and pepper, you get this:
So, so, so good. Now, tempeh doesn’t have the same crunch you would get with real bacon, but if you toast the bread enough, it gives you plenty of crunch so you don’t even miss the bacon texture. You almost fool yourself into thinking the crunch is still from the “bacon”. We were both so pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Especially since we had been wanting BLTs for a while and we finally found something to take its place!
Aside from tasting amazing, tempeh is so good for you! So much better than regular bacon. Let’s take a look:
Yes, you are reading that correctly. Seven slices (we used about 4 for each sandwich) contains only 130 calories and 1 gram of fat. ONE! You also get 5 grams of fiber and 12 grams of protein. So for all of you “but where do you get your protein?” people, just take a look at that one more time.
Just for fun, let’s take a look at real bacon’s nutritional information taken from Oscar Meyer’s website.
So in about two slices of bacon, it will run you 70 calories. Not bad. The real trouble is in the fat and cholesterol. Plus, only 4 grams of protein?? But wait, I thought meat was the best source of protein? Fear not bacon lovers, you do get 6% of your daily Vitamin C needs. Whew….
Now that you have seen both, which do you think your body would appreciate more? I suggest just trying it. Next time you are grocery shopping, pick some up and try it out. You might be very surprised!
Newly converted tempeh lover,
