Saturday, September 14; Vegan Mofo Day 14

Tofu Satay with Rice Noodles and Veggies

Rating: 4.25

My continuing renewed obsession with the Candle Café cookbook brought me to the tofu satay recipe in the appetizer section, which I promptly decided was an entrée. I figured if I just made something else to go with it, it would be fine. I didn’t have any mint, so I had to omit that from the marinade recipe, and I was low on cilantro, too but no worries. Oh, and I swapped regular rice vinegar for the brown rice vinegar the recipe calls for because, well, that was what I had. I made up for the slight changes by putting in extra garlic. See? Garlic fixes everything. Despite my changes, it turned out great. The tofu bakes for 25 minutes, so it’s easy to cook a nice side dish to go with it. Plus, it gets that nice chewy texture I so adore in baked tofu. I found this recipe for peanut curry dipping sauce, which was really just begging for me to find a meal to go with it. I planned to make basil rolls (similar to the rolls in with the sauce recipe) because I had a wicked craving for one, but I couldn’t find rice paper anywhere. Not even Whole Foods. What?! OK, I only went to two stores, but still. I settled for regular frozen spring rolls, but it was not what I wanted at all. I must find rice paper! Anyway, at the same time I made the marinade, I also made the curry dipping sauce (not pictured) and also the coconut peanut dipping sauce in the book alongside the satay recipe. I didn’t have any limes or lime juice so I had to leave that out. And also cilantro and mint since I’d used the last of the cilantro in the tofu marinade and still didn’t have any mint. One would think that with the obsessive meal planning I do, I would have been better prepared for this dinner. Oh well. The sauce still came out great and Seth loved it. He liked it better than the curry sauce. I liked them both about the same, but made way smaller batches than the recipes are written for – I halved the curry sauce and quartered the coconut sauce. Both ended up being the perfect amount. There is some leftover, but not too much and I can use them later in the week, because I am going to make basil rolls dammit! The satay recipe calls for cucumber and tomato on the skewers, but I skipped the tomatoes and just used the cukes. They were really good dipped in the sauces. I decided to use a few odds and ends veggies that I had it the fridge and toss them with rice noodles to round out the meal. I steamed some broccoli, bell pepper and snow peas, then added about a teaspoon of unrefined coconut oil to the wok along with sliced shallot and garlic. Then I added the noodles and leftover marinade and tossed it all together. The coconut oil gave it a little extra boost of flavor that went really well with the satay and dipping sauces.