Tofu, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes and cheesy sauce!!

Vegan MoFo Post #3!!

I was having a group of mostly omnivorous boys over for dinner, and wasn't really sure what to make, so decided to go with comfort food. It turned out to be a good decision!

I marinated some chunks of tofu in equal parts white wine vinegar and tamari, flavoured with a huge bunch of chopped up basil. I set the tofu aside to soak up flavour while the rest of dinner was prepared.

Next, I boiled some potatoes in preparation for mashing, and put some water on in which to blanch some swiss chard. The chard was blanched for three minutes and set aside until the potatoes were fully cooked.
Mashed potatoes are a great vessel for other things... beans, greens, tomato paste, mashed up squash... if you are cooking for someone who is a fussy eater and you want to sneak more veggies into their diet... seriously... mashed potatoes... it's the way to go.
To these potatoes, I added:
-Earth Balance
-unsweetened almond milk (I don't measure these first two ingredients; instead, I add them a bit at a time until the potatoes have reached the consistency that I desire.)
-lots of garlic
-1 tablespoon of miso paste
-an entire bunch of blached swiss chard
-salt and pepper

Meanwhile, I tossed some mushrooms (lightly coated in olive oil) in the oven at 375 F to start roasting, followed by some zucchini about ten minutes later. These were left in the oven together for an additional ten minutes.

Cheesy sauce was made according to the recipe from the Veganomicon, to which I added a few tablespoons of tomato paste, and half a can of coconut milk (plus roughly one extra tablespoon of flour to compensate for the additional liquid.)

The tofu chunks were then grilled.

All of this was garnished with pea shoots and served with some lovely flat bread that I picked up at the store.

PHOTOS!!





The most satisfying part was that even the boy who had never eaten tofu before totally loved it. SUCCESS!

more potatoes, tofu, roasted veggies, heirloom tomatoes!

I picked up these beauties at the farmers' market this weekend...



I decided that they would have enough flavour to hold their own in a very basic sauce, and I was right! They were so very lovely.

I used about the amount of tomatoes that you see in the photo above, or maybe a handful more.

I cleaned the tomatoes and cut them in half, heated some olive oil and garlic in a pan, and then tossed the tomatoes in.

I simmered them until they were a bit liquid-y, added 1 teaspoon of sugar (they were pretty tart), and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. I then continued to let them simmer on low heat until they reached a more sauce-like consistency.

SO SIMPLE!



The rest of dinner was composed of some roasted mushrooms and zucchini; some leftover "burger" mix (see earlier post), simply pan fried instead of floured into burger form; and some stips of marinated tofu.



Roasting veggies!
Mushrooms were cleaned and rubbed with olive oil before tossing them into the oven preheated to 350F. They stayed in there for about 10 minutes before I added the oiled zucchini chunks to the mix (it takes less time to cook). They probably stayed in for another ten minutes. I don't usually time roasted vegetables, but rather test them periodically to see what's what.

The tofu was the "Marinated Asian Tofu" from the Veganomicon.

The whole thing was sprinkled with fresh cilantro.

All-in-all, pretty delicious dinner.