Sloppy Tempeh Joes

Have you ever noticed that sometimes, on a Monday, it's hard to get your act together?  For us Modays are often crazy, the Hubs goes to his office on Mondays (rather than working at home) and everyone at my job is trying to get the week "started off right", which means calling to ask me a zillion inane questions.  By the time we get home dinner is often just a little more than we can manage, and this Monday was no different.  The Hubs wanted to just order in a pizza, thinking that it would be easier than tackling dinner, but I promised him that this dinner would be done in less time that it takes to get a pizza delivered (generally 30 minutes) and with only one dirtied pan.  Turns out, it takes only 12 minutes to make sloppy tempeh joes. Delivery pizza just can't compete with that.  (More on the idea of quick dinners v. prepared dinners later this week.)

Sloppy tempeh joes are also vegetarian, in honor of Meatless Mondays, but if you only have chicken stock at home, don't sweat it, just use what you've got. For this recipe, I add a can of tomato paste to the onions and tempeh and then mix in the vegetable stock.  This method is very quick and it allows me to control the level of "sloppiness". Just keep mixing in the stock until you reach the consistency you're looking for.

Sloppy Tempeh Joes

2 cups vegetable stock
1 medium white onion, chopped
1 block tempeh
4 sandwich rolls
1 can tomato paste
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp worchestire sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp onion chutney
2 tsp siracha (or other hot sauce) to taste

Saute the chopped onion in a large skillet with the olive oil over medium heat.  After the onion has been cooking for 4 minutes, crumble the tempeh into the skillet with the onion.  Saute the onion and tempeh for another 2 minutes.  Add the tomato paste to the skillet and start adding vegetable stock, mixing the stock into the tomato paste until the sauce reaches the desired consistency.  Add the remaining ingredients to the tempeh and onions, adapting the amounts to suit your taste.  Serve over the rolls.  Bon Appetit!


Serves 4

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