Two Healthy Sandwiches

We had sandwiches for dinner twice this week.


Baked mustardy tempeh sandwiches with tahini, more mustard, veggies and some pickles from Thirty Acre Farm.

Baked Mustardy Tempeh

• An eight ounce package of tempeh
• 3/4 Cu. cider (from Ricker Hill of course)
• 2 Tbs. of tamari
• 2 Tbs. of a whole grain, country mustard
• 1/2 tsp each of cumin and caraway seeds, toasted briefly and ground in a mortar
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
• 2 1/2 Tbs. olive oil

Preheat your oven to 375°. Cut the tempeh crosswise into four pieces and then cut each of those pieces in half such that you end up with two thinner pieces (the idea is to turn your tempeh into something like cold cuts). Steam the tempeh pieces for about 6 to 8 minutes. Lay the tempeh flat in a small baking dish just large enough to accommodate the pieces. Mix the remaining ingredients together and pour over the tempeh, then cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake further until the mixture evaporates enough to become a thick coating, possibly turning up the heat to brown them a bit.

Make sadwiches from the tempeh and mustard, some tahini loosened with hot water and also sauerkraut or just lettuce, onions and tomatoes. These are excellent vegan sandwiches.

Next up, grilled tuna burgers, which are more of a summery dish, but somehow we ended up having them anyway.


I don't know how we ended up with a trendy book like Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life but we did and it actually has a bunch of great recipes in it, like these burgers.

Grilled Tuna Burgers
Adapted from Bobby Flay, Grilling for Life (2005)

• 2 1/2 Tbs. dijon mustard
• 2 Tbs. of a light oil
• 1 Tbs. of chipotle chilis from the can blended together with their adobo sauce
• 1 1/2 Tbs. lime juice and take the zest from the lime as well
• 1 tsp. honey
• 2 scallions, sliced or roughly chopped
• 2 - 3 Tbs. finely chopped cilantro
• salt; pepper
• 2 lbs. fresh tuna (make it the good stuff, don't stint on the tuna), finely chopped (preferably by hand rather than by robot)

Take all the ingredients that aren't tuna and mix them together, then mix the tuna in. Form burger patties from the resulting mixture. PLace them on a plate or baking sheet with wax paper and refridgerate for an hour or so (i.e. the usual trick with loose cakes that you need to coax into a shape long enough to saute or grill). Grill (preferably) or pan fry (if you must) the burgers and serve with watercress and Flay's green onion mayo, which he makes from mayo garlic, green onions, lime juice, salt and pepper. Damn these are good. Oh, and I know you bough that awesome fresh tuna and it seems like a sin to cook it all the way through, but these burgers aren't about that; cook them through, but not enough to dry them out.

We had these burgers with a shaved fennel, orange and pomegranite salad that was really amazing and will be the subject of a future post.