My Citrus Quinoa Tempeh Plate with vegan Avocado Cream is like serving up a platter of sunshine.
..I even attempted to make the dish look like a cute little sun .. with golden mango and squiggly beet rays of sunshine. #AbstractFoodArt 🙂
Sun Plate. Citrus spiced fluffy quinoa is topped with glowing, juicy slices of fresh navel orange, and skewers of peppery citrus-maple tempeh triangles. A ring of sweet diced mango circles the plate with swirly accents of finely shaved raw beet and a few chopped walnuts. A drizzle of my Super Avocado Cream (amazing as a salad dressing too) over top. Sunshine on a plate I tell you!
Feast on this and feel all glow-y inside..
Something to Celebrate.. I wanted to pause and give a big shout out to my other site: FindingVegan.com - recently, it passed the 10,000 post mark!
I started the site about a year and a half ago as a way for people to find delicious vegan recipes, products and other vegan "finds." I am so grateful for all the AMAZING bloggers who have submitted their posts to the site. I am inspired by the submissions on a daily basis.
FindingVegan.com is a great way to get a big picture view of what the world of vegan food is all about - simply put - it is cruelty free, creative, fun .. and delicious!
Now back to MY vegan recipe creation for the day.. (I'm sure you will see it on Finding Vegan very soon too!)
Side of strawberry smoothie..
Yummy Avocado Cream. Seriously, if you make only one component of this plate - make the Avocado Cream and use it as salad dressing. It is creamy, spicy, sweet, salty, zesty. It was sooooo yummy I really don't even want to try and describe it with fancy culinary words like "bright" and "balanced." It was just plain... yummy.
More avocado cream please...
As is, this plate makes a nice lunch or even breakfast! I enjoyed it for a sunny lunch and was quite satisfied eating the fluffy quinoa, sunny fruit and tempeh protein.
For a heartier meal, you can add a giant pile of spinach, arugula, kale or chopped romaine - the Avocado Cream begs to be slathered over top some greens.
If you have leftover dressing, store it in a tightly sealed dish and add a bunch of lemon, orange or lime slices on top (in between the dressing and the container lid/foil/plastic wrap) - helps to keep it from browning.
OK, enough talking. Start reading the recipe so you can be eating it!
Sunshine Plate:
1 skewer of tempeh (recipe below)
3 slices of peeled orange
1 ¼ cups spiced citrus quinoa (recipe below)
¼ cup beets, finely grated
1 tablespoon chopped raw walnuts
½ champagne mango, diced
a few dashes chili salt over top (I used Penzey's Spices Spicy 4/S - love it)
Generous drizzle of Avocado Cream over top + more if you'd like 🙂 (recipe below)
To Assemble:
1. Mound the quinoa on your plate.
2. Add the citrus over top. Then the skewers of tempeh.
3. Add the diced mango and walnuts along the edges. Add the beets in little mounds.
4. Drizzle the Avocado cream over top the tempeh and dash a few more spices as you'd like.
Super Avocado Cream/Dressing
makes about 1 ½ cups
1 large avocado
1 tablespoon tahini
2 teaspoon tamari
½ cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 teaspoon maple syrup (or agave)
2 teaspoon oil (walnut, EVOO, pumpkinseed .. something with some flavor & omega-3's)
1 small jalapeno, stem removed (if you don't like spicy - scrape away the seeds)
a nice amount of fine black pepper - to taste
optional: ½ cup cilantro or parsley
Directions: Place all ingredients in blender (I used my trusty Vitamix) and blend until creamy.
Spiced Citrus Tempeh Triangles
makes 8 mini triangles
8 ounces tempeh, cut into about 8 small triangles
⅓ cup orange juice
2 teaspoon tamari
2 teaspoon maple syrup
a few dashes chipotle spice (or another fave spice)
pepper to taste
1 teaspoon safflower oil
optional: a few drops of liquid smoke
optional: 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
Directions: Heat the oil in a saute pan, add in the tempeh and smother it in the spices, liquid smoke, maple syrup and tamari. After you have a nice sear, add in the orange juice and cover with lid. Allow tempeh to cook for a minute or so. Remove lid and add some pepper and the optional nutritional yeast. Simmer until all the liquid has been absorbed or steamed off.
Fluffy Citrus Quinoa
makes about 4 cups
1 cup + 2 tablespoon dry, unrinsed quinoa
⅔ cup water
1 cup orange juice
¼ cup white onion, diced
Fold in to the cooked quinoa:
3 tablespoon nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste
3 teaspoon spices (use any variety! I used a spicy Cajun blend)
Cooking instructions for quinoa: How-to make fluffy quinoa.
