Vegan Doodle

Besides cooking vegan food, I also like to draw. Lately, I've been drawing on my iPad with my finger, using the Paper 53 app. This is my latest drawing of a typical dinner in our house.

Paper 53 gives weekly prompts, and this week it was Bon Appetit. Of course, I had to illustrate a vegan meal ...

Sweet 'N' Salty Cashew Tofu

My fifteen-year-old son Dean made dinner the other night and said I could use his recipe for SWEET ‘N’ SALTY CASHEW TOFU for my blog. We all liked it, so I will.

Ingredients

 

Tofu 

1 block tofu

1 tblsp. olive oil

 

Cashew Mix

½ cup — cashews, chopped (or not, as in my photo)

1 Tblsp. — tamari, to taste

1 Tblsp. — nutritional yeast

2 tsp. — water

1 tsp. — ginger root powder (or fresh, minced ginger root)

1 tsp. — red pepper flakes, or to taste

1 ½ Tblsp. — fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 tsp. — agave nectar

 

Method

Cut tofu into cubes and fry in olive oil in a cast iron pan on high heat, stirring just enough so it doesn’t burn. Once the tofu becomes chewy on the outside, add the cashew mix, lower the heat to medium, and stir constantly. Once the flavors have merged, turn off flame and serve warm.

I served this with pesto rotini and tomatoes from our garden.

Vegan Crock Cheeze made with Tofu

My friend Eileen offered me some of her vegan sister Denise’s Crock Cheeze. Thicker than a dip, it reminded me of the soft cheese in brown ceramic crocks my friend Biffy and I used to eat after school when I would visit her family’s restaurant. The crocks were set out along the bar in the darkened room, and we would sit on tall stools while slathering the cheese on crackers.

This vegan cheeze was not orange colored, but it had the same texture and tang. What was in it? I had to know! Denise kindly emailed me the recipe, which came out of Jo Stepaniak’s 1997 vegan cookbook, Vegan Vittles. The cheeze turned out to be tofu-based, not nut-based, as I thought it might have been.

I doubled the recipe, as Denise recommended, and I added red pepper, since my paprika was kind of old and brown looking. Note to self: Buy some fresh paprika. Next time I might add some turmeric for its yellow color. I also think some roasted red pepper would be a nice addition.

 

Peanut Tofu Sauce

I only had one block of tofu last night that had to be stretched to feed several people. Peanut butter came to my rescue. I mixed a few things together to come up with a peanut tofu sauce that went nicely over some linguine. I found it to be a very filling meal. In fact, I ate way too much of it and ended up rolling around in pain between my fellow Stargate Atlantis rerun-watchers, who were less than sympathetic. Still, it tasted good going down.