Okara Patties with Cilantro and Chaat Masala

Having experienced some success with my previous Okara Burger, I thought I would try again to make an Okara Patty, hoping for a stronger flavor. My older son’s friend yelled up the stairs to me that it was the best burger he had ever tasted. The twins even came around and tried them out — and ate every morsel. Success! I won’t have to compost the okara anymore!

The amounts and types of flours that you use can be entirely changed to suit your taste buds: This is just what I did this time around. I can picture corn, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms … even zucchini being great additions. I used Chaat Masala (also called Spiced Salt, though it doesn't always contain salt) because I happened to have ground some up another day. Mine is not as complex as others — although I can’t remember exactly what I included in it — and I adapted it from a spice mix recipe in The Spice Box cookbook. Curry powder would also work.

Tofu Salad

One thing led to another while making dinner last night, and one of the things was TOFU SALAD. One of my sons was making guacamole, and I had gotten a green salad ready — adding radishes, arugula, chives, sorrel, mizuna, baby kale, and cilantro from the garden to a big head of red lettuce. 

I had cooked some potatoes for a potato salad, and the pan of hot water was still sitting there, so I threw some lamb’s quarters on top of the potatoes to steam. They volunteer in the garden and are a good substitute for spinach. They, like spinach and chard, do contain oxalic acid, which binds with calcium, so they are not my favorite green for that reason since I eat greens for their calcium content, but they are fine occasionally and are very mild tasting and not as slimy as spinach. I dressed the greens with lemon, olive oil, and salt.

I made a marinade for the potato salad, including olive oil, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, tamari, vegan Worcestershire sauce, yellow mustard, Smokey Serrano hot sauce, chopped onion, and celery. I mention this because I used some in the tofu salad, which I turned to making, next. 

Vegan Okara Burgers

This might not be too interesting to anybody who doesn’t make soy milk. If you do, you are always on the lookout for something to make with the okara — or leftover soy pulp resulting from straining the soy milk. Okara is still full of nutrition and fiber, so it seems a shame to compost it.

OKARA BURGERS  are not hard to stir up, they use up the okara from making three batches of soy milk — which I do at least twice a week — and they are an easy dinner for a hot summer day, along with some salad and noodle or potato salad. You don’t need to serve okara burgers on a bun, but I had some around, so I did.

These can be made with various vegetables, but I used what I had on hand. This recipe makes sixteen burgers, and you can then easily freeze them for a later time — a gift to your future self, who is most likely too hot to cook. 

Vegan Romesco with Cauliflower

My son remembered a delicious spread we bought once called Romesco, looked up a recipe, and sent it to me. Hint, hint.

The photo shows an open-face sandwich I made with my VEGAN ROMESCO SPREAD WITH CAULIFLOWER, some roasted tempeh strips, cucumber, radish, tomato, and green onion and arugula, with roasted onion to the side. This spread is very flavorful and filling. Although maybe that was because I ate several scoops of it before I constructed my sandwich … it was that good.