Your Vegan Mom

Home Again, with Bread, and Not Much Else

I had a bad day. Desmond woke up early and crabby, then fell asleep in the car on the way to the farmers' market, meaning that I did not get my midday me time to do things like eat lunch, and cook and write and fold laundry. And I left my lemons and oranges and avocados at the market.

Yeah, I know, no one died. Nothing really terrible happened, but I'm tired and cranky and I don't have my lemons. Fortunately I had a really good sandwich at the end of the day to almost make up for it.

When he was out of the sourdough that I had come for, the man at the Manhattan Bread Company (as in Manhattan Beach to any of you that aren't from round these parts) gave me a big fat focaccia roll to take home and try instead. And it was just what my marinated grilled tofu and pesto needed.

The Pesto
1 large handful (about a cup) fresh basil
1 large handful (about a cup) fresh spinach
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
a small handful (a scant quarter cup) of pistachios (or whatever nuts you have on hand)
a few generous shakes (a tablespoon or two) of soymage
about 1/4 c. olive oil

Whir all that in the food processor until it's a consistency that pleases you. I like it pretty creamy.

Good night.

Eat Your (Beet) Greens!

Having made a roasted beet and brussels sprout salad for approximately 58 people over the weekend, we are left with a mess o' beet greens to contend with. Yesterday Paul sauteed as many as would fit in a large skillet along with some olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. The pungent greens were a nice counterpoint to some simple soothing mac n' cheese.

Today the remainder of the already sauteed greens joined forces with some sweet browned onion to become a perfect filling for the fatfree vegan lady's omelette recipe. I don't have a non-stick pan. The cast iron serves me well in all areas except omelette making. This recipe was delicious and produced a light fluffy flavorful vegan omelette that I will definitely make again, but it stuck to my pan. (And it's not just because I cooked it too long, Smartie. I cooked it too long because I kept hoping that it would come off of my skillet the way it came off of Susan V's. It never quite did. And you would never be seeing this anyway if it weren't for this accursed VeganMoFo and the fact that I am still, rather surprisingly I might mention- I've never prided myself on my stick-to-it-iveness- writing about food everyday as per my own personal interpretation of the imprecise rules of the Vegan Month of Food.)

And so tonight we feasted on beet green omelettes. They weren't pretty, no, but they were mighty tasty.

Procrastinator's Grilled Tofu

Did you know that you don't have to drain your tofu for hours and marinate it overnight in order to get satisfying grilled tofu? Oh it's a fine technique and still probably the best way to really infuse your tofu with flavor, but if you haven't planned ahead, you can still get delicious grilled tofu on the dinner table with very little effort. You're gonna need -

a grill pan
a block of tofu (the firmer the better, but softer tofu will just take longer to cook)
about a cup of bbq sauce
basting brush or teaspoon if you don't have a brush
cooking spray

The idea here is that you're going to cook the tofu over low heat for a long time while you periodically baste it with sauce. In this way, the moisture will gradually dry up (replacing the draining-on-paper-towels-under-a-pot-weighted-down-with-a-bag-of-rice step). And the sauce will have time to soak in. I put the tofu on the grill first thing while I ready the remainder of the meal, in this case while I made mac n' cheese and salad. It can cook on medium-low for a good long time. Any time you walk past it, baste it again with the undiluted (You don't want to be adding water back to the tofu.) sauce. Flip it every once and a while so that it's cooking evenly and getting basted on both sides for maximum flavor absorption. I flip it after every couple of bastes and probably wind up flipping it about 4 times in all. When the texture of the tofu has gotten firmer, when it has nice grill marks and carmelizy saucy bits, it's done.