Tag Archives: Vegan

Simple Asian Tofu

Main Dish, Recipes, Tofu, Vegan February 7, 2014 Leave a comment

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Simple Asian Tofu

Author: Sweet Green Kitchen’s Jen Jones

Vegan

4-6 Servings

Ingredients:

2 – 12 ounce packages Extra Firm Tofu (or Sprouted Super Firm Tofu)

4 Tbsp Low Sodium Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp Sesame Oil

1 Tbsp Honey or Agave Syrup

1 heaping tsp Chili Garlic Sauce (found in the Asian aisle, I use the one with the Rooster)

2 Tbsp Orange Juice

1-2 Tbsp Water

2-4 Scallions – thinly sliced lengthwise, cut into 2-3 inch pieces

Canola Oil or Cooking Spray

 

Directions:

Prepare Tofu: Remove from package and drain out liquid.  Place in a rimmed plate or pie dish (to catch any liquid that releases) wrapped in a few paper towels and top with a heavy object (book, cast iron skillet, etc).  Allow to press and drain out excess liquid for about 20 minutes.  Note: do not skip this process, it will affect the texture of your finished dish and the tofu will not fully absorb the marinade.IMG_2487

Meanwhile, Prepare the Marinade: Combine remaining ingredients, up to the Canola Oil/Cooking Spray in a small bowl or directly in whatever container you will marinate the Tofu in.

 

After 20 minutes or so, unwrap the Tofu and slice each block into about 8 equal pieces (my last slice almost always ends up a bit slimmer).  Leave the Tofu in slabs OR if you prefer, cut each slab in half lengthwise into “fingers”.

In a small casserole dish or lidded container, pour a little bit of the marinade on the bottom of the dish and then layer the sliced Tofu, pouring a bit more marinade between layers and top with all remaining marinade.  Add the sliced scallions. Slosh around a bit so all the Tofu is covered in the marinade.  Cover the dish and refrigerate. 

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Allow the Tofu to marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, all day, over night or up to 2 days.  You can prepare it in the morning and it’s ready to go when you get home from work.

 

To cook: If pan searing, heat a non stick 12 inch skillet over medium heat coated with a bit of Canola (or other light) Oil.  If baking, pre-heat oven to 375 and spray a rimmed sheet pan with Cooking Spray. 

Remove Tofu from refrigerator, leaving the marinade behind, place pieces in your prepared pans.  A 12 inch skillet can hold about 8 slabs or 12-16 fingers of Tofu at a time.  Cook in batches, removing finished Tofu to a serving platter.  Save the marinade. 

Pan Searing: Over medium-high heat, cook the Tofu about 7-8 minutes on the first side, then carefully flip and cook another 3 ½ – 4 minutes until both sides are golden.  If necessary, add a little more oil to the pan.

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When all the Tofu has been pan seared and placed on a serving platter, pour the saved marinade into the hot skillet, lowering the heat to avoid splattering.  If you wish, add a little more orange juice into the pan to help deglaze and make it a little more saucy (note there will not be a lot of sauce).  Cook for a few minutes, allowing the marinade to reduce and slightly carmelize.  You can then add some of the Tofu back to the pan and flip around the sauce or simply pour the sauce over the finished Tofu. The scallions can be cooked slightly with the marinade or left raw. 

Oven Baking: Place all the Tofu in a single layer with a little space between each piece on the baking pan.  Cook Tofu at 375 F for about 20 minutes, then flip and cook an additional 10-15 minutes, until both sides are lightly browned.  

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Oven Baked Simple Asian Tofu

Notes about cooking methods:  Pan frying the tofu will allow the exterior to brown and carmelize a bit more, while leaving the center a bit softer.  When I have the time to let the tofu rest a bit after cooking or plan ahead to serve it cold or at room temperature, I much prefer it cooked this way.  However, if I am going to eat the tofu warm, I prefer the oven baked method, which will result in tofu that is a little drier (but not in a bad way) and firmer.  Also, pan frying requires a bit more of your time and presence as you need to keep an eye on things, whereas if you oven bake, you can just pop it in and forget about it for a little while.  Either way, it’s delicious and a frequent meal in our home.  Enjoy

Curry Spiced Lentil Salad

Beans, Recipes, Salads, Vegan January 1, 2014 1 Comment

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA                       Curry Spiced Lentil Salad
 
Altered ever so slightly from the original My New Roots, Best Lentil Salad, Ever….Even though I enjoy Indian foods and the many spices associated with that region of the world, this is not my comfort zone of cooking.  I tend toward Mediterranean style cooking with a smattering of Asian influence and sometimes a bit of “California Mex”, but for me cooking Indian food is rare.  My husband, once (many, many years ago) bought me a Vegetarian Indian cookbook (which was one of the most thoughtful and one of the rarest gifts he’s purchased completely on his own), which I have yet to make a single recipe from.  It is not that I don’t love this gift and find many of the recipes in it interesting, but I’m scared off a bit by the looooong list of ingredients each recipe entails and not to mention the sheer weight of the book itself (which causes it to most often be used as a weight for pressing tofu, perhaps that’s why I don’t get many gifts from dear hubby, hmm).  I do get turned off by very long recipes, even though I myself when improvising a recipe tend to add more and more ingredients as I go, but I also feel unfamiliar with the combination of spices and other ingredients that go into Indian cooking and can never really imagine in my mind and taste buds what exactly the final dish is going to end up as.   So, on New Year’s Eve, searching for recipes that included foods that are said to bring good luck in the new year, I stumbled upon this recipe and decided without much thought to give it a go.  I didn’t change it much, except for the quantity of some of the ingredients and left out or changed a few that my daughter doesn’t like.  Skipped the currants and replaced them with cranberries and pomegranate seeds, the two add a nice balance of sweetness against the curry spice.  Don’t let the long list scare you off, it’s mostly items from the spice drawer and the recipe comes together fairly quickly.  What I ended up with was a lovely lightly spiced and a little bit sweet lentil salad for the new year.

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups dry French Black Lentils (about ½ pound) – don’t substitute other varieties as they will turn to mush when cooked, while the tiny French variety will hold up

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

½ Tbsp Honey

½ Tbsp Dijon Mustard

½ teaspoon Cumin

¼ teaspoon Turmeric

¼ teaspoon ground Coriander

¼ teaspoon Cardamom

1/8 teaspoon ground Cayenne

1/8 teaspoon ground Cloves

1/8 teaspoon Nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon Cinnamon

Salt and Pepper to taste, plus a little salt for cooking the lentils

2 Shallots – diced

¼ – ½ cup dried Cranberries – chopped

¼ – ½ cup Pomegranate seeds

About 1 Tbsp chopped fresh Mint

To make the salad, begin by preparing the lentils.  Rinse, pick over and add to a pot with enough water to cover by a few inches.  Add a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 15-20 minutes.  The cooked lentils will retain a nice al dente bite.  Once cooked, drain off and set aside to cool just a bit before adding to the dressing.

Meanwhile, make the dressing. Add all ingredients above after lentils and up to the cranberries.  Whisk together and set aside until the lentils are done.  Add the lentils to the dressing and stir.  Add in the chopped cranberries and pomegranate seeds, then the chopped mint.

Optional add ins; other fresh herbs, maybe a bit of parsley or tarragon, some crumbled goat cheese… I enjoyed mine atop a Romaine salad.

Enjoy!

Raw Root Asian Style Slaw

Salads, Side dishes, Vegan December 14, 2013 1 Comment
IMG_2513_Raw Root Asian Style Slaw
 
Raw Root Asian Style Slaw
Author: Sweet Green Kitchen’s Jen Jones
 
Serves 4-6
 This salad is as delicious, cleansing and healthy as it is colorful.  Skeptics, do yourself a favor and give this a try.  The raw beets have a much milder, sweet flavor than their cooked counterparts.  I live with two beet haters, who both love this slaw.  The dressing is a lovely balance of slightly sweet and spicy from the ginger. 

 Dressing Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar (I prefer organic)

1 Tbsp Toasted Sesame Oil

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

2 Tbsp Soy Sauce (I prefer organic or GMO free)

1 Tbsp Honey (I use raw unfiltered)

1 Tbsp fresh grated Ginger

1 small clove grated Garlic (I grate the garlic on the same microplane I use to grate my ginger)

1 Tbsp chopped Pickled Ginger

Ingredient Notes:  If you’ve never worked with fresh ginger before, give it a try.  It’s a knobby root, sold in many supermarkets and health food stores.  It’s okay to break off the amount you need from a larger piece and you can store it unwrapped in the refrigerator or for a longer time wrapped in the freezer (it’s actually even easier to grate when frozen, but it does make the hands cold!).  To use ginger, peel off the skin with a veg peeler or the back of a spoon and then grate on a micro plane.    

Pickled ginger on the other hand, is the type served with sushi, thinly sliced and pickled with a sweet and sharp flavor.  It is sold bottled in supermarkets in the Asian section. 

Slaw Ingredients:

Red Onion – either 1 small onion or 1/2 of a large onion

Kohlrabi – 1 large or 2 small

Beets – 1-2 large or 2-4 small

Carrots – about 4

Ingredient Notes:  I’ve recently discovered kohlrabi and I love it.  If you’ve never had it before, I liken it to a combination between green cabbage and jicama.  It has the mild sweet flavor of the cabbage and the watery crunch of jicama.  It is also delicious sliced in wedges and dipped in hummus.

To make the slaw:

First combine all of the dressing ingredients in a large bowl.  This is the same bowl you will use for the whole recipe (I hate extra bowls to wash).

Thinly slice the red onion and add it to the dressing.  Stir to cover all of the onion slices with the dressing, this will allow the onions to pickle a bit while you prepare the other ingredients.

Next, prepare the remaining roots, saving the beets to work with last as they will color your cutting board and knife.  Both the kohlrabi and beets need to be scrubbed and peeled.  I usually buy organic carrots and don’t feel the need to peel them, just scrub them well, but if your carrots are conventional it’s best to peel them.

Cut the kohlrabi, carrots and beets into thin matchstick/julienne slices.  I do this by hand with a sharp knife, not because I posses mad knife skills, but because I’ve never taken the time to investigate the grating blades on my food processor and because I’m afraid I’ll slice my finger off with a mandolin, but if you do not have either of these concerns and feel comfortable with your other gadgets, by all means use them as they will make quicker work of it.

Add each prepared ingredient to the bowl atop the onions, as you go, without mixing.  I start with the kohlrabi, then the carrots and lastly the beets.  After all roots have been added to the bowl stir to completely combine with the dressing and pickled onions.  Enjoy!