Lettuce, Avocado, Tomato and Tempeh Sandwich

I want to preface this blog post by assuring my loyal readers that we have in no way turned our backs on bacon.  Delicious, delicious bacon.

With that said, this week Tim and I tried a new, healthier version of the BLT sandwich made using ingredients easier to find in Indonesia.  Specifically, this sandwich substitutes tempeh for bacon.  I am sure that statement will elicit many eyebrow raises, but this sandwich is actually pretty damn good (despite my weak photo).  You can't really think of it as a BLT substitute, but a new and interesting sandwich in its own right (Heidi from 101 Cookbooks calls it a TLT sandwich, but I think it's more accurate to call it a LATT, don't you?).

The tempeh is marinated such that it has a slightly sweet, salty, smokey flavor, and is then pan fried so it's crisp on the outside.  Layer it in the sandwich with creamy avocado, crunchy lettuce and flavor-concentrated roasted tomatoes... not bad, not bad at all. Good enough that I plan to make it again soon.

I followed the recipe for the most part, although I skipped the brown sugar when roasting the tomatoes, as I thought the tempeh had enough sweetness.  Give it a try!

Roasted Tomato Salsa

Tim and I had some folks over to grill this weekend and we needed a starter.  I had big plans to make some guacamole, but couldn't quite get the avocados to ripen simultaneously, so salsa it was.  

As I said last week, the tomatoes here are not the best, but when roasted they perk up a bit, so I made a roasted tomato salsa, loosely based on this recipe from Closet Cooking.  Pretty good!  Roasting the tomatoes gave it some depth and a bit of a smokey flavor... good stuff.  Lots of lime juice and cilantro gave it some contrasting zing.  

Roasted Tomato Sauce for Freezing

So, as I did last year, I bought bulk Roma tomatoes for making sauce to freeze and use in the winter. Last year's sauce was flavorful, but kinda watery for my taste. Since I had such good luck with oven-roasting tomatoes earlier this week, I decided to try a roasted tomato sauce for freezing this year. So far, so good! It's looking thicker and chunkier than last year's, for sure.
I did one batch with carrots, a la the Other Martha, which tasted very sweet. Then I decided to do a second batch with no carrots, but with a sprinkle of red chili flakes prior to roasting the tomatoes, onions, garlic, etc.

Oven-roasted Tomatoes

The CSA has brought a bounty of tomatoes to 1346: This week I bought bulk Roma tomatoes (10 lbs!) to make sauce, like I did last year, but I still had a couple Romas and a pint of mixed cherry and grape tomatoes from last week. So clearly it's tomato eatin' time.
I thought these slow-roasted tomatoes from Smitten Kitchen would be a good solution for the smaller tomatoes... roasting the tomatoes really concentrated their sweetness and tomato-y flavors. I served them with an herbed goat cheese spread on crackers... awesome and easy appetizer that would look impressive at a party!