Tofu, and greens, fried in soy sauce, brown sugar and cayenne
Aren’t raw cashews poisonous?
Mine is African Vegetable Stew. I submitted that recipe to the Usenet Cookbook back in 1986. As it happens, I made it last night and have leftovers in the fridge.
No. Just the shells. That’s why you never see cashews sold in-shell.
I don’t get it when people say that tofu has no flavor. Maybe if you’re buying flavorless tofu, it has no flavor but great tofu has plenty of flavor. A common Chinese dish is just plain silken tofu with a bit of soy sauce and scallions scattered over the top. With high quality tofu, it’s delicious.
How is there enough liquid in the pot to cook a half-cup of rice? Do you add the liquid from the canned garbanzos?
Reading over it, I’d be tempted to throw in some curry powder or something like that. Also maybe topping with some chopped peanuts for crunch - common in some parts of Africa but not sure where this recipe originates. Would the world stop spinning on its axis if I did one or both?
ETA: oops, forgot mine: quinoa or amaranth, simmered with minced onion, garlic, and carrot.
I love tofu - I either buy the already pressed stuff, or make tofu and press it to make it ultrafirm. If you nuke it to warm little chunks and toss them in melted velveeta cheese it comes out tasting exactly like Kraft Dinner. If you toss them in melted butter and A-1 sauce, it is umami heaven and takes away the protein cravings. If you toss them in the classic Anchor Bar wing sauce [Frank’s Hot Sauce and Butter/Margerine] they taste just like wings, and if you deep fry the tofu cubes you can get a nice bit of crunch in the outside for the almost wing skin effect.
And as a sort of comfort food effect, I make a vegan minestrone that we love and is dead easy to do - bag of the mixed legumes the one I use is the one that has like 13 or 15 different types, a couple of the largest cans of stewed tomato with basil pr whole plum tomato in sauce with basil, about 3 tablespoons of italian seasoning, about a tablespoon of ground pepper, quarter teaspoon of tabasco sauce, about a cup of red wine, 2 cups of chopped onions, 2 cups chopped celery, 2 cups of chopped carrots, 1 cup chopped bell pepper OR cubanell pepper, water or veggie broth to cover. Simmer until veggies are tender, chuck in 1 cup dry ditali pasta and simmer until al dente. Correct seasoning on soup with salt pepper or hot sauce. Plop pot on the table with a few loaves of bread, a huge bowl of salad and some good red wine or ice tea.
There’s enough liquid from the tomatoes. If you use canned tomatoes, add the juice. Fresh tomatoes release quite a lot of liquid when you cook them.
As for peanuts, I often do use them as a topping for this dish.
Cheese. With cheese. In cheese sauce. With cheese on the side.
Stoid, that sounds like a chupaqueso.
Vegetarian: pasta with some kind of dairy.
I don’t do vegan.
It surely wasn’t created with vegetarianism in mind, but done right, pizza margherita is damn near culinary perfection.
Got to agree with this. Same with a really great batch of fettuccine Alfredo.
Well, in my opinion Tofu does more than have no taste, it actually repels taste. Any attempt to get it to acquire taste via seasoning or marinade is in vain. So I’m imagining a tofu quiche would be vegetables suspended in a tasteless matrix.
Actually I don’t mind Tofu at all when it’s really well blended with something else that has a lot of flavor. I really just don’t like it when it’s left in chunks. One of my favorite dessert recipes is a tofu, banana, chocolate mousse.
I was discussing this whole thing yesterday with a friend and we found a vegan quiche recipe that uses chickpea flour, herbs, and yeast for the “quiche” filling (along with whatever vegetables). That actually sounds good and we’re going to try that recipe out.
This is basically what I do when there’s no meat in the fridge. Saute some onion and garlic in olive oil. Deglaze with some red wine. Throw in some garlic, tomato sauce and what ever herbs might be around. A ton of wilted basil is excellent, or maybe a little basil and a ton of spinach. Capers, anchovies, cheese, mushrooms: the list of things you can add goes on forever, depending on whether you are going vegan, vegetarian or carnivore.
I just thought of another that I make every summer when the good tomatoes come in: spaghetti with raw tomatoes, basil, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. I got the recipe from an old Dover book of pasta recipes. All of the ingredients are raw except for the spaghetti.
Omelet, stuffed with cream cheese, peppers, onions. A side of home fries, heavy on the garlic.
I don’t care for chunks of tofu that have been marinated, but I am a huge fan of slices of tofu fried in a regular oil/sesame seed oil/soya sauce mix.
Pressing it to firm up the texture makes a huge difference. It smushes out the excess water and the more meaty textured version seems to absorb liquid born flavoring better afterwards. I like to simmer ginger, garlic, about a single pointy thing off a star anise, a single whole clove and about an inch of cinnamon stick, soy sauce and sake together and strain out the solids while the tofu is being pressed, and then to let the tofu marinate for 3 or 4 hours in the fridge, it seems to be really nicely flavored and makes great deep fried tofu chunks. [These are one of my more favorite stick a cocktail toothpick in it thype hors d’oeuvres. Add duck sauce thinned out with some pineapple juice and hot mustard and they are baconless crack for vegetarians!] Cut into really fine cubes, like 1/3 inch and they go great in miso based soups [favorite combo is scallion, spinach and tofu cube white miso soup] and it can even be tossed onto a salad in place of chunked blue cheese, stuffed into kalamata olives in place of dead goat piss cheese, stuffed into dates in place of cream cheese, garlic cloves or almonds, an dprobably more types of cheese replacement.
It always blows peoples minds when they see me ordering a steak after seeing me eat all these tofu vegetarian foods 
I just don’t mind going meatless with a fair amount of frequency as long as whatever I am eating tastes good. Our roomie seems to think if an animal doesn’t die it isn’t a meal. She also considers pizza a snack and gets grumpy when we plan dinner and it is pizza and a salad. We always have to kick in something dead like an order of chicken wings, ribs or make her a sub sandwich instead of the pizza. :rolleyes: