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vegetarian diets
Artiste:
Say, did anyone mentioned: Wild Rice ?
seadragon16:
--- Quote from: atz75 on October 09, 2008, 11:19:29 pm ---
I'm at a point where I'd really enjoy continuing to exchange recipes and cooking tips. LOL, one my questions at the moment is about sauteing tofu. What is the best method for cooking tofu so that it develops that nice golden crust or surface? Whenever I cook tofu it just gets hot... it doesn't develop that thin gold crust. Maybe I'm using too much oil or butter? Any and all tips about good tofu recipes would be great!
--- End quote ---
Hey atz, hope you're still enjoying veggie food! I've been a veggie for almost 20 years since I was 10 and a vegan for the last year or so (I was also vegan from about the age of 15 - 18, but then started eating a little bit of dairy again). Cooking tofu takes some getting use to. It can be incredible if it's done right, but pretty horrible and tastless and it tends to turn to mush if it isn't.
As someone else said, the best thing is to press it between layers of kitchen paper to get it as dry as possible before deep frying it for a few minutes or frying it in a pan in very hot oil without turning it over too often. Also, don't cut it up too small. Then marinate it in whatever you fancy - for a stir fry, soy sauce with ginger and chilli is good - then add it to the veg and fry for a few minutes. You can also get smoked tofu that tastes good without marinating it.
My favourite meal is scrambled tofu with fried mushrooms, either on toast or on top of a jacket potato. Fry some mushrooms in a little oil or marg and then crumble a block of firm tofu into the pan with the mushrooms. To add to the flavour add a teaspoon or two of dried nutritional yeast (great for adding a 'savoury' or 'cheesy' taste to the tofu).
Tofu is also great in sauces - makes a great pasta sauce if you blend it together with mushrooms, garlic and some herbs and soya cream. Marmite is good in tofu marinades too (although I hate it otherwise!) - gives it a nice flavour, just don't use too much.
Just thinking about all that makes me feel hungry! ;D
Brown Eyes:
Heya! Thanks seadragon!
So, it seems like it might be a good moment around here to start exchanging vegetarian Thanksgiving and holiday recipes.
Any suggestions for a new vegetarian?
Ellemeno:
--- Quote from: atz75 on November 19, 2008, 03:25:40 pm ---
Heya! Thanks seadragon!
So, it seems like it might be a good moment around here to start exchanging vegetarian Thanksgiving and holiday recipes.
Any suggestions for a new vegetarian?
--- End quote ---
All of the typical Thanksgiving foods are vegetarian, or can be, except turkey, and even that has replacements. So it's pretty easy. Mini-Meno and Mr. Meno are ovo-lacto veg, and I am, at home. The one day of the year that meat is served in our house is Thanksgiving, but my sister in law makes and brings it, and it's her family who eats it. I've thought about asking them to consider just leaving it at home, but it seems to be part of our family's exercise in diversity.
Anyway, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, yam and squash, green bean, cranberry, pumpkin pie, all just plants. Even vegan Thanksgiving is pretty easy. Over the years, we've at times had two mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving: one with dairy, one vegan; 2 stuffings: one with meat and butter, one vegan; 2 gravies: one turkey, one nutritional yeast-based. These days, no one in the family is eating consistently pure vegan, and the meat eaters have gotten more flexible about what ingredients HAVE to be in things, so the one stuffing has butter, but no meat, and the mashed potatoes have butter and half and half. We still have 2 gravies, and frankly the last two years, the turkey gravy I've served has been straight out of a jar, and no one has said anything, though they may not be crazy about it. The homemade vegetarian gravy is much more delicious. My husband, who doesn't often feel the need for faux meat-type products, likes having some sort of vegetarian turkey-like hunk to slice up at Thanksgiving. The last couple of years it's been Field Roast brand. The few years before that, it was Tofurkey brand.
I guess, for me, the most challenging aspect of vegetarian Thanksgiving has been lack of respect for it on the part of a couple of the meat eaters in the extended family. But by now, with my husband having been a vegetarian for at least 13 years, my niece for nearly that time, since she was 12, and my daughter for all of her 5 1/2 years, the jokes, remarks, and concerns have all been said, and everyone's food choices are a non-issue.
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