Crispy Nori Tofu

I made up this meal weeks ago and have desperately wanted to try it, but things like "time" and "head colds that won't die" got in the way of me realizing my dream. Last week I got so far as buying, and marinating the tofu, then ended up on the couch in a sea of tissues after work, leaving the boy to just bake it in the oven. The marinade was apparently good -- he ate the entire pound himself. This week, a pinched nerve caused near failure again. I marinated the tofu, but then couldn't deal with cooking. I left it in the fridge an extra day, however, and last night, it happened.. CRISPY NORI TOFU!!

Ok so what is crispy nori tofu? It's marinated tofu dredged in rice flour, ground nori, and ground sesame seeds. It is then pan fried to a crispy shell and enjoyed (with or without wasabi). I served it with sauteed snap peas and left over grilled red pepper strips, and some sesame ginger rice. This time, I probably could have eaten the entire pound myself... but I shared.


Crispy Nori Tofu
You need..
1 lbs tofu, cut into slices, thickness as desired
Canola oil (or whatever you like to fry in)

Marinade:
1/4 cup tamari
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp mirin
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp sesame oil

Crust:
1/3 cup rice flour
2 sheets nori
3 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Combine all the ingredients for the marinade and marinate the sliced tofu for at least 8 hours.

2. In a food processor or blender, combine the crust ingredients and pulverize so it all resembles a fine flour with some sesame seeds here and there.

3. Take the tofu out of the marinade and press it, wet, into the flour mixture to coat.

4. In a cast iron skillet over high heat, heat 1/4 inch of oil. Add the tofu slices and fry 3-4 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels or brown paper bag for a few minutes to remove extra oil before serving.

Lemon Dill Tofu

Has it really been 3 months!?

Actually, the last blog post coincided with when I started my new job. Now on top of the whole "PhD thing" I have a full time job, a part time job, and 3 hrs/wk at the co-op. Cooking has gotten interesting since I don't get home until 8pm 3 nights a week, and at that point, I don't really feel like cooking much. I've been experimenting a bunch with the crock pot and making casseroles ahead of time that the boy can put in the oven when he gets home. I need to find where I jotted down the recipes to a bunch of stuff I made up... but I did find the scrap of paper for this one, which is Lemon Dill Tofu. It is SERIOUSLY lemony, but in a good way. I served this with vegetable fritters from 500 Vegan Recipes. It's a good recipe, but instead of making 6 that all fit in one pan, like the recipe said -- it yielded more like 15 and took over an hour to cook them all. I wonder how big of a pan the author was using... Anyway, this is the recipe for my lemon dill tofu marinade. I marinated my tofu overnight, then baked it, and it was good.



Lemon Dill Tofu Marinade
1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp tamari
1 clove garlic, grated or pressed
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 tbsp olive oil.

Mix all the ingredients together and use to marinate 1 lbs of tofu.

Crispy Tofu

And so, this is the last meal I cooked last Tuesday before I got sick. This isn't really a recipe as much as it is a method for getting some nice crispy tofu!

One step that I'm leaving out of this is the draining/pressing step, which should happen before you marinate your tofu. The tofu I use is made by The Bridge (http://bridgetofu.com/). If you can get your hands on this stuff, definitely do. It is so creamy and firm it doesn't need to be pressed. People who eat my tofu think I've done something magical to it, but really, I've just used that awesome tofu.

Anyway, the reason behind this meal was the boy was "mmmm"ing over the thought of mashed potatoes and gravy, so I had to figure out a meal around them. I especially do not like mashed potatoes, so it had to be something where I could enjoy an alternate side. And so, I marinated the tofu in a "gravy marinade" ( strongly concentrated unchicken broth, tamari, nutritional yeast, poultry seasoning) which I later thinned with some more water (so the taste wasn't so strong) and then thickened with a roux (so that we weren't pouring broth over our food!) and it multitasked as a really excellent gravy. I had my crispy tofu with cider roasted brussels sprouts and baby carrots and a baked sweet potato. The boy, of course, had mashed potatoes in lieu of the sweet tater. It was really yummy and had a very chicken-nugget esque feel to it. I think next time I'll cut the tofu thinner/smaller, but otherwise this was the best crispy tofu to date.


The method for this was as follows:

Cut the tofu in whatever size you like and marinate it in whatever you like. Put about a cup of rice flour into a large bowl. Season in generously with salt, pepper, and whatever else you like (I used poultry seasoning). Toss the tofu in the rice flour a few at a time to coat, then dip them in the marinade again, then toss them around in the rice flour again until they are thoroughly coated. Heat about a centimeter of oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat and place the tofu in to the pan. Cook the tofu until it's golden brown, then rotate it to another side. Keep browning sides and rotating until all sides are cook. Take out and allow to train a bit on brown paper or paper towels. Enjoy while hot and crispy.

Sweet & Sour Tofu

My latest cookbook acquisition was The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author of The Joy of Vegan Baking. It's a really nice book with lots of color pictures of the dishes. It took me a while to get used to the format, which organizes the dishes according to what sort of dinner party you'll be having and not necessarily by course, but I got over that and have been enjoying it for the past few months. My most recent recipe trial was for the Sweet & Sour Tempeh, only tempeh and I don't get along. I don't like it, and it makes me sick. We've decided to call a truce and tempeh is no longer part of my life. The recipe suggested tofu if one isn't a tempeh fan, so I went that route. The other change I made to the recipe was leaving out the red pepper flakes because spicy doesn't agree with me either, though I can see how they would go well in the sauce. I also used more green beans than the recipe called for because I have them coming out my ears from the garden... and I left out the onion and used a small pattypan squash instead. That's pretty much the same thing, right? I tossed the tofu around in some rice flour and pan fried it to give it a nice crispy crust before mixing it with the veggies and sauce. Overall, I was very happy with this dish! The apricot sweet and sour sauce was very yummy and it went well with the tofu and vegetables. I thought it was going to be too much sauce, but it worked out well over rice. I think my main criticism would be the number of pots and dishes it took to make this!! But I just hate doing dishes.


Sweet & Sour Tofu
1 lbs tofu, cubed
1/2 cup rice flour
Canola oil for pan frying
1 cup + 3 tbsp of water
1 inch piece of ginger, grated
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 cups of green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 small summer squash cut into bite sized pieces
7 oz of apricot preserves
2 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in a little cold water
5 tbsp tamari
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp light miso
Black sesame seeds for garnish

1. Toss the tofu cubes around in a large bowl with the rice flour until the cubes are well coated.

2. Heat enough oil to cover the bottom of a large cast iron skillet. Brown the tofu cubes on all sides, then take out of the pan and drain on brown paper/paper towels.

3. In a small pot, combine the preserves and water and simmer for 10 minutes.

4. While that's going on, heat the remaining 3 tbsp of water in a skillet (I just wiped out the one I made the tofu in and used that again) and sautee the veggies and ginger until they are tender-crisp.

5. Add the cornstarch dissolved in water to the apricot mixture and stir until the mixture begins to thicken. Add the vinegar, tamari, and miso, and continue to cook until the miso is dissolved and the sauce is thick.

6. Toss the tofu in with the veggies, pour the sauce over the whole lot and turn over gently to coat, then sprinkle with black sesame seeds for garnish. Serve over rice.

Crunchy Marinated Mexican Tofu and Corn Fritters

Here's how this meal evolved -- we had friends over for dinner Saturday night and at the end of dinner, I had 3 cooked ears of corn on the cob that no one ate. I rarely actually eat leftover corn on the cob unless I cook it into something else, but what? Not enough for soup, wasn't really in the mood for salad... then genius struck. CORN FRITTERS!! My mom used to make corn fritters when I was a kid out of a can of corn niblets and flour and eggs and things, and we loved them. I set out to find a vegan corn fritter recipe and found a bunch, but some just had too many ingredients, and a lot called for a bunch of other veggies, and I JUST wanted corn fritters.. so after reading a bunch of recipes from various sources to get an idea of what goes in 'em, I made one up. It turned out FANTASTIC!

... of course you can't just eat corn fritters for dinner. (ok ok, you can, but you SHOULDN'T because they aren't a balanced meal) I thought maybe tofu of some sort would go well, and decided to make up some sort of Mexican-ish marinade for the tofu, and then bread it and bake it. It also turned out absolutely delicious. I thickened the leftover marinade into a sauce that I drizzled over the top (and dipped my fritters in). I served sauteed broccoli and carrots on the side, and it was a complete, and completely yummy dinner.


Crunchy Marinated Mexican Tofu
1 cup vegetable broth
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp agave nectar
1 tsp liquid smoke
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp fresh cilantro, diced
1 lbs tofu, drained and sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp cornstarch

1. In a small bowl whisk together everything but the tofu, bread crumbs, salt and cornstarch. Place the tofu slices in a lidded container, pour the marinade over it, and refridgerate overnight (or until you become impatient and want to cook your damn tofu already).

2. Oh hey tomorrow! How's it going? Preheat the oven to 425. Remove the tofu from the fridge, and pour the marinade off of it into a small pot. Set aside.

3. Mix together the panko and salt on a plate. Retrieve a baking sheet and either spray with nonstick spray, or use a silpat sheet. Press each piece of wet tofu in the bread crumbs, flip, press the other side in (you're trying to stick the breadcrumbs to the tofu) and place on baking sheet. Once they're all ready to go, lightly spray each piece with oil (helps it brown and crisp!). Bake for about 45 minutes, or until firm, golden brown, and crispy.

4. Meanwhile, during the last 15 minutes of cooking, bring the remaining marinade to a boil. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with just enough water to dissolve it, then whisk it into the boiling marinade. Simmer for about 5 minutes, whisking often, until the sauce gets a ketchup-like consistency.

5. Apply sauce to tofu. Eat.


Corn Fritters
3 ears of corn, de-eared (about 1 1/2 cups of corn niblets if you're going frozen or canned)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 1/4 cup rice milk
Oil for frying

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

2. Add the rice milk and whisk until the big lumps are gone.

3. Fold in the corn. Allow the batter to sit for at least 5 minutes before frying.

4. To fry, in a cast iron or heavy bottomed skillet, heat enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan (about 1 cm of oil). It's ready when it looks "wavy," or if you put the bottom of a wooden spoon into the oil it bubbles around the wood. Scoop 1/4 cup of batter per fritter and pour into the pan, spreading it a little as you pour. Cook until the edges look bubbly and brown, then flip, and cook until that side is golden brown. Drain on paper towels or bags, and sprinkle with salt immediately after removing from the oil.

Pineapple Miso Marinade

Let me begin this entry by saying I don't have a pretty picture of this. You can barely even see any tofu for all the veggies, but it was delicious.

I invented this tofu marinade out of things I had around, and my desire to eat tofu in some sort of marinated fashion. This pineapple-miso marinade has some nice sweet and sour action going on. I marinated tofu cubes in it for 24 hrs, then I baked them in about a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes or so until they were firm and chewy and golden, then I tossed them in a stir fry made with the leftover marinade, thickened with some cornstarch. Of course you could do whatever you like with the tofu... I won't stop you!


Pineapple Miso Marinade

1 cup hot water
2 tsp miso
1/4 cup tamari
1/2 cup pineapple juice
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
2 gloves of garlic, pressed or grated
2 tsp sesame oil

Add the miso to the water and stir until dissolved. Add everything else, and mix it well, then add about 1 lbs of tofu to marinate. The longer the better!

Tofu Parmesan

Yes, so about that Uncheese cookbook -- I decided I wanted to make a block uncheese, and "mostarella" seemed like a good start. The recipe claimed it was "just like" mozzarella cheese, and melts and everything. What could be bad right!?

Ahem... yes, well... it is NOT just like mozzarella cheese!!

It's weirdly sticky and has a strong tahini flavor and not enough salt or tang. Overall though, not inedible, and I thought if I put it with some sauce and stuff, it might be good. I decided to invent Tofu Parmesan for dinner. Overall the dinner was good! The uncheese did not melt, instead it just got even browner so it was strange brown rectangles on the top. As for the taste? It wouldn't've made any difference if I left it off because you couldn't taste it there anyway. The tofu came out yummy though!

Tofu Parmesan

1 lbs extra firm tofu, drained, pressed (if you do that sort of thing -- I buy mine in bulk and I find it isn't necessary)
2 cups unchicken broth, hot
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp tahini
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
2 cups seasoned breadcrumbs (check your Kosher grocery isle - Kosher breadcrumbs are usually vegan!)
1 large jar marinara sauce (did I mention I was lazy this week?)
4 cups frozen spinach (I buy it in a bag, not a block, and make sure it isn't frozen into a block)
1 block mozzarella-style-cheeze

1. Slice the tofu into 1/4 inch slices. In a vessel large enough to marinate the tofu, mix the unchicken broth, nutritional yeast, tahini, and poultry seasoning. Add the tofu to the marinade, swish it around to make sure it's all got some marinade, and put in the fridge to soak for a few hours or overnight.

2. Once done marinating, bread the tofu in the breadcrumbs. Mine stuck just fine from being wet from the marinade. Then bake the tofu ina 375 oven for about 20-30 minutes on each side until the breadcrumbs are crunchy.

3. Lightly oil a 9X13 baking dish and spread a thin layer of marinara sauce. Arrange the tofu slices on top of the sauce. Top the tofu slices with a layer of spinach, top that with the rest of the sauce, and that with the mozzarella-style-cheeze. Put it back in the oven and bake for another 20-30 minutes, or until it's bubbly and your cheeze melts... if you have that kind of cheeze.

4. Let it cool a bit before you cut into it or you'll burn your mouth! :X

Homemade Tofu: A photo diary

It all started with an email to baypuppy: "Hey you with the Vitamix, do you want to make tofu?" The boy and I were having a conversation in bed one night about fake meat, and how I didn't think tofu or seitan (or tempeh) counted as fake meat since they are their own foods. He asked something about making tofu, meaning seitan, then I replied "well.. you COULD make tofu..." and the rest was history.

baypuppy was on board, but she also has a soymilk maker, thus making the process even easier. We picked a day to do it (no school! Yom Kippur!) and started the all day process of making a very small amount of tofu. There really aren't recipes here...

Step 1: Make Soymilk. This involved some amount of soybeans that bp had soaked overnight, and this carafe looking machine that made loud whirring noises and somehow turned said beans into soymilk. We made 3 batches.

Step 2: Place all soy milk into large pot and heat to 170-180 degrees

Step 3: Add coagulant. This part was a little sketchy. There are all sorts of things you can use for coagulating tofu, including Nigiri (some sort of mystery stuff that you have to mail order), and EPSOM SALTS. That one weirded me out. I'm sorry, it's a muscle soak, a laxative, and a tofu coagulant? Too weird. We took the middle road and used apple cider vinegar diluted in water (~1/4 cup vinegar + 1 cup water)

... and coagulate it did....

... and coagulated some more... for a total of about 15 minutes of turning into baby spit up





Step 4: Skim off the "whey." We used a mesh strainer to hold the "curds" back and ladelled off the whey. Now the weird thing about this picture is that it isn't sideways on my computer... yet it is here... you may need to tilt your head to get the full effect.


This is the "curds" with most of the "whey" removed:

Step 5: This step involves a "tofu press" which is a wooden box with holes in it and a lid that's smaller than the top that you put a weight on to "press" the tofu. Yea, we didn't have one of those either. bp got a few cigar boxes from Cali and I drilled holes in one, and we made our own. I don't have pictures of the drilling because you shouldn't operate power tools and take pictures at the same time. Once we had our tofu press lined with cheesecloth, we started spooning in our curds. Mmm... curds...

Step 6: Pressing. The lid to the cigar box was, of course, fitted to the cigar box, and lacking some sort of jigsaw or dremmel tool to make it smaller, we just used a tupperware lid that was roughly the size and shape we needed. A few cans and a cast iron grill pan and voila! Tofu pressing! We pressed it for about a half an hour:

Step 7: Press some more. We took the tofu out of the press, which started off chock full o'curds and it was... a very small piece of tofu featuring a lovely grid pattern from the cheesecloth:

We decided to press it again, this time wrapped in papertowels, on a cookie sheet, with a cutting board and the grill pan again. Once that part was done we had a whopping 10 oz of tofu, which we cut into 6 pieces, 2 for each of us, because Scott was joining us for tofu adventure dinner:
We threw a bunch of things into a container for a marinade (apple juice, ketchup, molasses, unbeef broth concentrate, oregano, allspice, liquid smoke, maple syrup, soy sauce, garlic, ginger -- I have no idea how much of anything), marinated the tofu for a while, then baked it, along with some cauliflower and carrots which were the only veggies in my house at the time that weren't in queue for another meal:

Scott and bp say "Nom nom tofu."
At some point I'll post the further adventures of what we did with the Okara (soybean pulp)... but I need to do dishes and go to the post office now. Instead, have some bonus kitties in love:

Pesto Pasta with Baked Pesto Tofu

I bought a huge bunch of basil recently for a recipe and I had a bunch left over, so I thought I'd make some pesto with the rest of it. I mentioned it to the boy and he said there was some chicken pesto monstrosity that he enjoyed from a deli, and wanted to know if I could do pesto seitan or tofu or something. I decided on tofu since I thought it would adapt better to pesto that seitan. I think of seitan as more of an alfredo protein. All the pesto recipes I found called for tons of oil and more basil than I had, so I kind of winged it with what I had around the house. It came out REALLY yummy and the whole dish was delicious, though it doesn't photograph so well!



Pesto Pasta with Baked Pesto Tofu, Roasted Cauliflower, and Zucchini

The Pesto
2 cups basil, packed
3 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup vegetable broth
3 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
salt/pepper to taste

1. In a small saucepan, heat the oil on low with the crushed garlic. Turn the garlic occasionally until it's light brown and fragrant. *

2. Put the basil, garlic infused olive oil, as much garlic as you want from it, broth, pine nuts, lemon juice, and nutritional yeast in a blender and blend until smooth. Taste, adjust seasoning, blend, taste again, until desired flavor is reached. Refrigerate or freeze until you're ready to use it.

The Tofu Part
1 lbs tofu, drained, pressed, cubed
3-4 tbsp pesto

1. Toss the tofu with the pesto and refrigerate, covered, overnight to marinate.

2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake the tofu on a non-stick spray sprayed baking sheet for 30 minutes, turning several times, until it begins to tan.

The Veggie Part
1/2 head cauliflower cut into bite sized pieces
1 zucchini, cut into half moons.
1 tsp olive oil

1. Lightly spray the cauliflower pieces with olive oil and place on a baking sheet.

2. Bake in a 425 degree oven until soft and beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. Turn halfway through.

3. Heat the olive oil in a small skillet and sautee zucchini until just tender. About 3 minutes.

The Pasta Part
8 oz fettucini or the pasta of your choice

1. Prepare pasta according to package directions.

The Assembly

1. Toss cooked pasta with another 3-4 tbsp of pesto... or more or less depending on your taste. Fold in the tofu and veggies. Nom.



* I cook the garlic because raw garlic doesn't agree with me. If you like raw garlic, or are indifferent or lazy, you can skip this step.

Tofu Quiche with Hashbrown Crust

A week or so ago I stopped into the grocery store to pick up a few things we needed. An employee stopped me and asked if I was going to spend $7.50. Glancing at my list, I said "Yes, probably" and she replied with "Want some free potatoes??" and extended a five pound bag and a bright yellow coupon in my direction. "Uhh.. ok.." I replied and took the potatoes. I don't normally buy potatoes in that quantity simply because I know we won't eat them all before they get eyes, and in my house, for whatever reason, tubers sprout like crazy almost instantly. But you can't wave a free vegetable in front a vegetarian and have them say no, so since then I've been trying to figure out healthy ways of incorporating them into our dinners before they go to waste. This is even more challenging because I loathe baked, boiled, or mashed potatoes, and potato salad. I really only like them roasted or fried, and I don't mind them too much in soup. This weekend on the Food Network, Paula Dean made a quiche with a hashbrown crust and I thought that might be a good use of some of the potatoes! Of course she used butter, and eggs, and cheese... and frozen hash browns... but conceptually I was in. This isn't necessarily the most photogenic bit of dinner, but it really was yummy! As a bonus, it used up some random veggie bits from my fridge, and some of the taters!


Tofu Quiche with Hash Brown Crust

For the crust:
3 cups grated potatoes
2 tbsp margarine
2 tbsp olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. Spray your pie pan with nonstick cooking spray

3. Grate the potatoes and toss with the oil and margarine to coat. Press the potatoes in the bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch pie plate and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the potatoes are getting golden brown.

For the filling:
1 (1 lbs?) box of silken tofu (I used Nasoya)
1 cup plain rice milk
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp dijon mustard
2 cups broccoli, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tbsp oil
1 cup soy mozzarella
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat and sautee the broccoli, bell pepper, and sautee until fork tender.

2. Meanwhile, blend together the tofu, milk, turmeric, nutritional yeast, mustard, and salt and pepper.

3. When the Hash Brown Crust is finished baking, put the veggies in the bottom of the crust. Top with the cheeze, then pour the tofu mixture evenly over the top.

4. Bake the quiche in a 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes until the tofu is set and starting to brown. It will still be a little jiggly coming out of the oven. Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before cutting.

Of course you can change up the veggies and cheeze and seasoning as desired. Onions or mushrooms would probably be nice in it.

Hash Brown Crust!

Perhaps not the prettiest dinner, but it was really delicious and bizarrely egg-like!

Thai Steamed Green Garden with Coconut-Peanut Sauce

Jeez, what is it with me and peanut sauces this week?? This is another recipe from Vegan Express by Nava Atlas. It sounded interesting, and used some baked tofu, and it was easy enough to leave the scallions out to make it onion free. In the end, I was actually about halfway disappointed by the baked tofu. It really didn't have much flavor, and for almost $4 for 8 oz, I would have liked it to taste like something all the way through! (The outside had some sauce on it) The texture was really nice and firm and creamy though. Still, I don't plan on spending $8 on special tofu any time in the future. I think next time I'd just use my favorite locally made tofu and marinate it overnight in the coconut-peanut sauce. Along side this, I used the rest of the light coconut milk and cooked some brown rice in it (2 parts coconut milk to 1 part brown rice - bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and barely simmer 45 minutes. Turn off the heat and don't touch it for 10 minutes, then eat it). It complimented the veggies and tofu really well!


Thai Steamed Green Garden with Coconut-Peanut Sauce
4 cups broccoli florets
8 oz green beans, cut in half
2 stalks of lemon grass, cut in half and slit with a knife
1 medium zucchini, cut in half and sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
2 8 oz packages of White Wave Thai-Flavored Baked Tofu, cut into slices

1. In a large skillet or wok, combine the broccoli and green beans and add just enough water to coat the bottom of the pan. Put the lemon grass on top, cover, and steam until the veggies are bright green, about 5-7 minutes.

2. Add the rest of the veggies and tofu and toss together. Cover and steam again for about 2-3 minutes until all the veggies are tender-crisp.

3. Fold the veggies and tofu with enough coconut-peanut sauce to coat (recipe to follow). Serve the rest on the side.

Coconut-Peanut Sauce
8 oz Thai Peanut Satay Sauce (available at grocery store)
1/2 cup light coconut milk
Juice of 1 lime
2 tsp maple syrup

1. Mix all ingredients together.

2. Yea that's it.

3. The original recipe also called for 1/2 tsp red or green Thai chili paste, but I'm not a spicy food eater, so I left it out. Add it in if you like.

Sesame Crusted Tofu

This one is the Food Network's fault. I have no idea what I was watching but they were making Sesame Crusted fish and ewww fish but mmm tofu yadda yadda yadda Sesame Crusted Tofu.

Now that I've made and eaten this, I realize what the fatal flaw was. It's bland. Once you've got them drenched in peanut-ginger sauce, the tofu is quite yummy, but without it... It's sesame seeds and tofu. I still like them though. Not everything has to be jazzy.

It was a bad night for lighting

Sesame-Crusted Tofu 1 lbs tofu, drained, pressed, and cut into "fingers"
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups sesame seeds
1 tsp salt
Olive oil for misting

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet. Silpat is great for this.

2. Put the flour mixed with salt in one bowl, the water in another, and the sesame seeds in a third. Dip the tofu in the water, the flour, the water again, then the Sesame seeds, turning the tofu so it gets a good coating of them. Lay the tofu finger on a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the tofu.

3. Mist the tofu lightly with olive oil and bake for about 30 minutes or until golden, turning the tofu regularly.

To serve with this, I made a simple Peanut-ginger dipping sauce. I didn't really measure, it went something like this:


1/2 cup natural peanut butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable broth
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp tamari
1 tsp agave nectar
1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1. Stir all the ingredients together. Adjust seasonings to taste. (You might want to start out with less ginger. Some ginger roots are stronger than others!!)

I served all this with some assorted veggies (broccoli, bok choy, baby corn, chinese eggplant, shiitake mushrooms, carrots), stir fried, with some hoisin sauce, tamari, garlic, and ginger. There's really no recipe at all on this one.

Tofu Scramble and Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

One of my favorite meals for cleaning out the fridge of all it's random bits of vegetables is Tofu Scramble. A lot of people eat tofu scrambles for breakfast but I'm not a really big breakfast-in-the-morning type person. Breakfast for dinner is definitely more my speed! This meal is fairly simple but full of flavor and texture and a great way to fulfill a ketchup craving.

I use the tofu scramble seasonings and method from Vegan with a Vengeance, but use my own veggie mix. One thing you may notice with my recipes is that they rarely contain onions. Onions make me quite ill so I work around them/sub them out in most recipes. I happen to live with an onion lover, however, so sometimes I find myself cooking with them in big pieces and picking them out, or making them on the side and stirring them into his portion. On the flip side, he's a mushroom hater. Meals made with mushrooms are generally ones I've made for myself and/or friends with other things for the hater. The original recipe called for both onions and mushrooms... hence the mods.

The potato recipe is mine, as much as you can claim a recipe for roasting potatoes. I don't like mushy potatoes (i.e. mashed, baked) unless they're in soup, and I like my potatoes with skins on, thus roasted potatoes and oven fries are two of my favorites.



Tofu Scramble ala Things Left in Megan's Fridge
1 1/2 cups broccoli, chopped fine
1 1/2 cups cauliflower, chopped fine
1 small red bell pepper, diced fine
1 carrot, grated
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 lbs firm or extra firm tofu
1 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp cumin
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1. In a large pan over medium heat, heat the oil. Add the garlic, broccoli, cauliflower and pepper and cook for about 8 minutes until it starts to soften.

2. Add the spices (not the yeast or the lemon yet) and 1/4 cup of water and stir to coat everything. Crumble the tofu into the pan. Fold everything to mix it up.

3. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. If it's getting too dry, add a bit of water to moisten it back up again. Add the carrots in the last 3 minutes.

4. Add the nutritional yeast and lemon juice and mix it around to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Add more water if needed to make everything come together. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

1 lbs Idaho potato(es) [I happened to have one giant potato, but several smaller are fine too]
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees

2. Scrub your potato(es) well. If you are truly opposed to potato skin, peel it (them), but that's where all the nutrition is so you can decide how guilty you feel about getting rid of all those nutrients and fiber. Dice the potato(es) into about 1" dice.

3. Put all the diced potatoes into a large bowl or ziplock bag. Add the olive oil and rosemary and toss to coat evenly.

4. Lay your potatoes out on a baking sheet in one layer. I find a silpat sheet to be very helpful to prevent sticking. Sprinkle with salt as desired.

5. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are toasty brown (flip one to check the bottom) and they're fork tender on the inside.