Vegan Valentine’s Day 2009
For Valentine’s Day, Carlos and I made fried tofu, mushrooms, and spinach over a potato and carrot purée.
Ingredients:
1 package of extra firm tofu (NOT the silken kind)
enough potatoes for the two of you
carrots (I used 6 baby carrots because that’s what I had in the fridge)
as many mushrooms as you like
a couple handfuls of spinach.
Directions:
Boil the potatoes and carrots for about 30 minutes (note the potatoes may take longer, so to make sure it’s soft enough, you want to be able to stick a knife straight through the potato with ease).
Mean while you can press your tofu. To do this, put the block of tofu on a plate, and gently place another plate over it. Leave for 30 minutes and when you lift the plate, you’ll see that a pool of water will have collected underneath the tofu.
When the potatoes and carrots are done, purée them together with some butter to taste, and salt if you like that sort of thing. I’m not big on salt.
Put oil in the frying pan, and stir in mushrooms until they start to soften and turn golden brown.
Mean while, to cut the tofu into wedges, first cut the tofu’s height in half or thirds, depending on how thick you want your wedges. Then cut a big X on the face of the tofu, to make four wedges. And finally, cut across the center of the X, cutting the length in half.
Add tofu, spinach, and soy sauce to the mushrooms. Fry until spinach has wilted and the tofu is heated and browned (about 5-10 minutes).
Put your purée in a mound at the center of each plate. Lean the tofu wedges against the purée, and the rest of the stir-fry can be poured over this.
For dessert we had fried banana, fresh strawberries, and a chocolate honey sauce (on occasion, I do indulge in honey, but this could easily be substituted for maple syrup). In retrospect, I wish we’d done a soy yogurt parfait with fresh bananas and strawberries, so I’ll do that next, and let you know how it turns out!
