Your Vegan Mom

Chilaquiles

There are few things better than the smell of corn tortillas toasting.  Now, throw in a sunny day and a few hours of quiet while Paul takes the boys to run errands and I am set.  

Chilaquiles
This might be the easiest thing you ever make.  Throw in a handful of corn kernels and some shredded kale if you want to really flesh this out.  Ooh, and top with some sliced avocado while you're at it.  I, however, tend to make chilaquiles when either provisions, time, or energy are lacking, and so they most often contain these super minimal ingredients.

Makes: 2 large servings
Takes: about 10 minutes

• 4 corn tortillas (all the better if they're slightly stale)
• 1 tablespoon mild cooking oil
• 14 ounces firm tofu 
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (not totally essential, but solidly recommended)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup salsa 

Cut the tortillas in half, stack them and slice into thin strips, about 1/4 inch wide.  Heat the oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat.  Toast the tortillas until nicely browned, crunchy, and smelling divine.  Toss them around a couple times to toast somewhat evenly - some still chewy bits are just fine.

Slide them onto a plate, and crumble the tofu into the pan.  Stir in the nutritional yeast, salt, and salsa. Let simmer for about 5 - 10 minutes to absorb the flavor and cook off some of the liquid.

Stir the crunchy tortilla strips into the saucy tofu and serve.   

Paul

Here's what he's been doing, and the reason I didn't have a lot of time to talk about food before Christmas:

He's on the left.  He's producing his first feature film.  That's our friend Sean on the right.  He's the writer and director of this incredibly personal, beautiful movie.  I am so proud of them.  They just launched a kickstarter campaign to get this project finished.  Check it out.  Pass it on.  Thanks.

I'll be back tomorrow with breakfast.  Or lunch or dinner, really.  I make this super delicious, incredibly easy dish whenever I have a few stray corn tortillas lying around.

Donna Klein's Sesame-Orange-Glazed Tofu Nuggets with Broccoli and Red Bell Pepper

I'm going to tell you right now - this is a bit more labor-intensive than what I would usually make for dinner on any given Thursday, but it was just so delicious that I could see it becoming a regular in our kitchen.  Maybe I can get a kid to dip cubes of tofu in sesame seeds.

I was skeptical of the recipe too.  I feared the tiny seeds wouldn't stick.  I thought they would just burn in the hot oil.  I thought the sauce had too much hoisin, and that it probably shouldn't be there at all.  I hate steamed broccoli.  And it was kind of a lot of work for something that I was pretty sure wasn't going to work.  

But it did.  As soon as I pulled one plump little pillow of sesame encrusted tofu from the sweet tart sauce and popped it in my mouth, I was totally hooked.  And I needn't have feared the still crisp broccoli.  

The recipe comes from Donna Klein's new cookbook, The Chinese Vegan Kitchen.  She spent a year in Hunan province, where the food is spicy and fresh, teaching English in a middle school and committing herself to learning all about Chinese home cooking.  We are so fortunate that she came home and wrote a book about it.

Sweet Potato Hash

I've been thinking about camping a lot lately.  One of the reasons I've been thinking about camping a lot lately is that it's more fun than thinking about cleaning pee off the floor.  We have just completed our three day family festival of all things execratory, Happy Underpants Days!  Some people call it potty training.  With the big brother it was called Pee Pee Summer Camp and it took place almost entirely in the backyard in August.  That was better.  This time around there has been a lot of pee on the wood floors.  (All rugs were removed in preparation last Thursday night.)  

On Sunday morning, day 3 of Happy Underpants Days!, I decided that a powerful breakfast was in order to get us through our last day.  I made hash - the sort that my dad used to make in the giant cast iron skillet over an open fire outside of the VW camper van somewhere in rural Oregon or coastal California on bundled up mornings when all that fresh air and running around made everything delicious, even canned corned beef.  

Mine didn't have that.  It had little cubes of soft sweet potato, and tempeh, and onions, and kale.