Hash

The other night there were just a few of us home, so I decided to make some HASH.

Wash and cut the eyes (or long roots, if you've stored your potatoes all winter, like I have) off two medium sized potatoes for each person. I used eight potatoes. Cube them into very small cubes, sized about a centimeter.

Chop a medium sized onion.

Fry the potatoes and onion together, breaking up an eight ounce slab of tempeh into the mixture. Tempeh can be made of soybeans or grains, and is a fermented food that is easy to digest. I hate to say any more on the subject, or you won't buy it and try it. Suffice to say the tempeh should have a whiteness between the beans which is a normal part of the cake of fermented beans. It has sort of the flavor of cheese (but what do I know, having not eaten it in so many years...) and can hold up to frying or using in all sorts of recipes instead of meat, not having the flabby texture of tofu.

Anyhow, while those three ingredients are frying away, and you keep turning the mixture, trying to keep it from burning, sprinkle it with tamari, nutritional yeast and Tabasco sauce. Keep it cooking on medium heat until the largest piece of potato is soft, or you will have complaints from the peanut gallery. You can add small amounts of water to the mix to help it cook without burning, a little at a time, so it is still sautéing, more than it is steaming.

Meanwhile, you could steam some collard greens. Wash and bunch them together, rolling them up and then slicing across them so they end up in strips. They will be ready in fifteen or twenty minutes once the water is boiling.

Serve the hash with ketchup, of course, making sure you get a vegan friendly one (there was something I read once about regular ketchup having some sort of meat extract in it—so get an organic one that says right in the ingredients what is in it), and sprinkle some lemon on the collards.