I debated about using the word “vegan” in this title because I worried readers might assume this sesame tofu recipe tasted terrible. But I did it anyway because in the end I believe it is important to be completely transparent.
So, yes, this is a vegan sesame tofu recipe. It is also delicious and easy. So delicious, in fact, that I’m going to start doubling the recipe to account for the fact that my kids eat three servings of it each every time I make it. And, it is so easy that I can make it while dealing with a 3 year old who is losing his shit because I won’t let him eat chocolate chip cookies before dinner.
Vegan Sesame Tofu Recipe Notes
Like I said, I have made this several times and so I have a few suggestions for you before you get started.
While extra firm tofu works just fine with this recipe, I prefer to use sprouted tofu because it has a much firmer texture and a bit more going for it nutritionally. We use Wildwood sprouted tofu, but there are other brands out there.
I know I said to serve this over white rice; however, I prefer to eat it with rice noodles. I just don’t unless I have time to make rice and rice noodles because my family thinks rice noodles are “weird.”
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Press and drain the tofu. Then break it into small pieces and allow it to drain further. Then combine the tofu pieces in a covered container with the corn starch and toss to coat.
Saute the coated tofu on medium heat in a few tablespoons of oil until golden brown. Then remove from the pan and place on a plate with a paper towel to degrease a little.
To make the sauce, combine all the sauce ingredients except for the cornstarch slurry, in a wok or pan. Bring to a gentle boil and then add the cornstarch slurry. Mix until the sauce thickens. Then, add the tofu and toss to coat.
Serve over white rice and garnish with sesame seeds and green onions.
Happy Meatless Monday all. I dug out an oldie but a goodie for this Monday. This recipe comes from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook my friend gave me a few years ago when she learned I had gone vegetarian.
The Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York is well known for its vegetarian cuisine. I’ve never been there, but their cookbooks are a great staple for any vegetarian and vegan kitchen.
Enjoy this delicious stew. Let me know what you think.
Sauté the onions until slightly browned; about 5 minutes.
Add the pineapple and its juice to the onions and bring to a simmer.Stir in the kale or chard, cover and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring a couple of times, until just tender.Mix in the peanut butter, Tabasco, and cilantro (if using) and simmer for 5 minutes.Add salt to taste, and serve. We served this over mixed grains, but the original recipe recommends serving it with rice, millet, or couscous. We have served it over polenta as well with great results.
This recipe for vegan cauliflower tacos is the first dinner recipe I’ve come across in a long time I actually felt I could recommend on the BLOG. That’s probably because it is a modification of a recipe from Thug Kitchen: eat like you give a fuck.
Note: our vegan cauliflower tacos weren’t technically vegan in the end because I had to add sour cream. Just giving you a little truth in journalism since there doesn’t seem to be much of that these days. Enjoy your tacos.
Another Note: ThugKitchen recipes are a staple in my kitchen and should be for anyone looking to start or expand their vegetarian and vegan cuisine options.
Make the Cauliflower Filling
Taco Ingredients
1 Head cauliflower ( I used yellow cauliflower)
3/4 c beer
1/4 c vegetable broth
1 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp hot sauce
1 to 2 cloves garlic minced
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp garlic powder
pinch of salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 yellow onion chopped
6 corn tortillas
1 avocado sliced
1–Chop cauliflower into small florets no bigger than a quarter. In a saucepan, warm the beer, broth, lime juice, soy sauce, hot sauce, and garlic over medium heat.
2–In a large bowl, toss the spices, salt, and olive oil together. Add the cauliflower and onion and still until coated. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees until it is browned. This should take about 20 minutes.
Make the Lime and Cilantro Slaw
Slaw Ingredients
1/2 head of cabbage (I used red for drama)
1 small carrot
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
dash of salt
1/3 c chopped cilantro
3–To make the lime and cilantro slaw, cut the cabbage into thin strips or dice into small cubes. Dice the carrot or cut it into strips as well. Mix together, the lime juice, vinegar, oil, and salt. In a bowl, combine the veggies and the sauce and mix well.
Put Those Vegan Cauliflower Tacos Together
4–Warm the tortillas in the oven and pile them high with the cauliflower filling, slices of avocado, lime cilantro slaw, and salsa.
Many years ago, I saw an interview with super model Gisele Bundchen. She was explaining to the interviewer that she ate mostly steak and french fries and did things like heli-skiing to stay fit for the Victoria’s Secret runway.
Okay, well now she is pushing 40 and has had two kids. And, according to her Instagram, instead of steak and fries on the regular, she and her super hero husband eat like this:
it helps to know that even super humans battle against the march of time and
after the Super Bowl, there was a lot of buzz about Tom Brady’s recipe for success AND his black bean brownie recipe. In actuality, the buzz was around Tom and Gisele’s personal chef’s black bean brownie recipe.
Obviously, I was going to have to try those brownies because if they are good enough for a super model or a super bowl champion, then they are certainly good enough for me.
Unfortunately, Chef Campbell doesn’t divulge his recipes, so I had to come up with what I think is a pretty close approximation, based on the ingredients he claims to use: black beans, flaxseed meal, coconut oil, cacao (NOT COCOA FOR GOD’S SAKE, CACAO!!!), and agave nectar.
The key takeaways:
If you are a regular person who can eat a regular brownie instead of something posing as a brownie, then you absolutely should do so.
If you have celiac disease,are a vegan, are trying to cut out refined sugars in your diet, or you are a killjoy, then these are the “brownies” for you.
And now, Tom Brady’s Vegan, Gluten-free Black Bean Brownies
Ingredients
• 1 15 oz. (425 g) can (~ 1 3/4 cups) black beans, well rinsed and drained
• 2 large flax eggs (2 heaping Tbsp (~16 g) flaxseed meal + 6 Tbsp (90 ml) water)
• 3 Tbsp (45 g) coconut oil, melted (or sub other oil of choice)
• 3/4 cup (72 g) cacao (if you don’t know, this is chocolate with NO sugar)
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/3-1/2 cup agave nectar (adjust to taste)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Optional toppings: crush walnuts or pecans (if you are splurging).
Oven temperature: 350°F
First, this is cacao. Chop 2.5-3 ounces into small pieces.Combine your coconut oil and the cacao in a microwave-safe vessel and nuke it until it is smooth and melty. Cacao, and cocoa for that matter, doesn’t melt well without a fat to help it out.Next, make your flaxseed “egg” (this must be a vegan thing). Combine your flaxseed meal and the water and let it rest until it gels.Okay, NOW, you can dump everything, except for the nuts, into the food processor. Process until it is well mixed and smooth.Evenly distribute the batter into 12 well greased muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops with nuts if that is what you are in to. Then bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. FYI, mine took the full 25 minutes.When the edges are starting to pull away from the sides of the muffin tin and a toothpick inserted into the middle of a few brownies comes out clean, you’ll know they are ready. Pull them from the oven and let them cool in the pan for 25-30 minutes before you try to remove them. Even when cool, these seem to want to fall apart.
Trying to find a house to buy in this country is no joke. Trying to buy a house in Sonoma County is basically impossible. As it turns out, all of the houses already have people living in them and there are no one plans to move or build any new ones anytime soon because:
the housing bust of 2008 dried up all the new construction
developers are building multi-family units because rents are really high but they aren’t building any new single family homes
there are still a lot of homeowners underwater on their mortgages
there isn’t enough inventory for those who are above water on their mortgages and who want to move.
Somehow, we can build a 2,000 mile wall between the US and Mexico, but we can’t agree on a plan to build more housing for the people who live here.
There are no houses to buy and when one becomes available, you better have your shit together or you will miss your chance. Sometimes, you may have to ask around, try to get some info on the down low, make an offer on a house that’s not even on the market.
You may find yourself trying to convince a sweet octogenarian, who happens to be the current owner of your dream house, to sell it to you when he or she feels ready to do so–no rush, you’ll just be right over here, pre-approved for a mortgage and keeping your checkbook warm.
I’m not saying this is me, but I am saying that if I WERE working that angle, I would bring that sweet octogenarian some baked goods; because they like that sort of thing and THAT is the kind of person I am.
You may have heard that a certain sweet octogenarian you would like to bake for has a bad heart, so obviously, you bake them something healthy and vegan from ThugKitchen because you really do care about their health, but you are NOT fucking around.
Cake Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 can (14 ounces) coconut milk
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
Sweet Sugar Glaze Ingredients
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup wine (whatever you used for the cake)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Warm up the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour a standard Bundt pan.
2. Make the cake: In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, coconut milk, wine, and vanilla. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Gently stir the dry mixture into the wet, then mix that shit up until there aren’t any more huge dry spots. Don’t overmix this though, just chill.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick stuck into it comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then stick a plate on top of that motherfucker and flip it over to get it out of the pan and onto the plate to cool.
4. Once the cake has cooled, you can add the glaze. Whisk together the powdered sugar, wine, lemon juice, and vanilla until there aren’t any clumps. Drizzle over the cooled cake and slice that sweet son of a bitch up.
I have a few notes to make about this recipe after trying it. First, I don’t know what is going on with the recipe for the glaze, but it needs some work. There is way too much liquid. I would say you could reduce the amount of wine in it, but that suggestion makes me sad. So, try a different glaze recipe if you have one. Second, as you can see from the photo, I made this cake into cupcakes and ate them on my Mom’s wedding china because octogenarians make you feel fancy and old-school.
Thanks to ThugKitchen for the recipe. We didn’t technically ask them for permission to publish it, but they can just fucking get over it.
You might think that I am about to hand you a recipe for a bowl of black beans, but I’m not. I’m here to do a couple of things:
try out some black chickpeas I got for Christmas (long story)
hack the way we all cook beans (unless you are from India, then I’m pretty sure this is just how you cook beans, but anyway…)
show you how we make chana masala at this house
I can’t properly credit this recipe because I have compiled ingredients and techniques from various places over the years and I’m way too lazy to list them all here; just know that it came from somewhere other than me.
Ingredients
1.5 cups dried chickpeas (we used black chickpeas for fun)
1 tsp baking soda
2 black tea bags
oil as needed
1 cup thinly sliced onions
1 tsp fresh ginger
1 tsp garlic
cloves
cardamom seeds
cinnamon stick
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup potatoes
1 green chili
1 1/4 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp turmeric
1-2 cups vegetable broth
Behold the black (desi) chickpea. These are similar to the lighter chickpeas, known as kabuli chickpeas common in the canned bean and bulk food area of the grocery store, but they are smaller, with a rough and tough outer skin, and obviously, they are black. Note: there seems to be a stray kabuli in the batch, but I let him stay because I liked his attitude.Before you can do anything with dried chickpeas of any color, you need to soak them for 8-10 hours. Use a large bowl because they will double in volume as they rehydrate.When it was time to cook the beans, I put them in a pressure cooker and added just enough water to cover them along with some cardamom and cloves. I also added 1 tsp of baking soda and 2 black tea bags because I read that adjusting the PH levels of the water will better penetrate the skins of the beans and help them hydrate all the way through.The bean science worked and these beans were firm but not dry. They also had a complex flavor because of the mix of spices and the black tea.Now, sauté your onions and garlic for 3-5 minutes or until they just begin to brown.Add your tomato and a teaspoon or so of salt and continue to sauté for another 3 minutes.Then, add your turmeric and chili powder. Cook this all together for 2-3 minutes.Remove it from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes.Blend it into a smooth paste in your food processor and set aside.Now, back to the skillet. Add a tablespoon of oil, a cardamom seed, a few cloves, and a small cinnamon stick. Sauté for 1-2 minutes to wake them up.Then, add your potatoes. Most recipes call for more chopped onions at this stage, and it doesn’t really matter too much what you use because we are just adding bulk to the sauce. I chose potatoes, because I just didn’t want to eat that much onion in one meal. But it is up to you.It is now time to add the paste you made in the food processor. Stir until all the ingredients are well combined.Add the garam masala and sauté for another 2-3 minutes.Add your beans and 1-2 cups of vegetable broth. I used all 2 cups because I like my beans saucy. Stir until well combined and sauté until heated through.Serve over white rice with sliced green chili and yogurt. The kids and I didn’t use the green chili because palates just can’t handle anything spicy but we add it for my husband, for whom nothing will ever be spicy enough.
These Barley-stuffed peppers from ThugKitchen have become a staple at our house. I have wanted to get them up on the blog for a while. So here you go.
A note about this recipe: In our humble opinion, it needs cheese. So, we add 1/4 cup of shredded parmesan to the actual stuffing mix and then we sprinkle shaved parmesan as a garnish. Obviously, doing this makes the recipe “non-vegan” but we are cool with that.
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
4 bell peppers, whatever color you find cool
1 1/2 cups cooked kidney or white beans
1/4 cups chopped fresh parsley
1–In a medium pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until it starts turning golden, about 3 minutes. Add the celery, carrot, garlic, thyme, and oregano and cook for another 2 minutes. Throw in the barley, tomato, and vinegar and stir. Add the broth, salt, and pepper and let it come to a low simmer. Cook, uncovered, until all the broth is absorbed and the barley is tender, about 15 minutes.
2–While the barley is simmering, heat your oven to 375° F. Cut the tops off the bell peppers and scrape out the seeds. Place them in an oiled pie place or loaf pan, something where their asses won’t be sliding around once they’re stuffed.
Grease a baking dish and squeeze them in there.More cheese!! Then cover them with aluminum foil for baking.
3–When the barley is done, fold in the beans and turn off the heat. (This filling can even be made a day or two ahead of time, no fucking problem.) Fill the bell peppers up to the top with the filling, cover them tightly with foil, and bake until the peppers are tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Let them rest for 5 minutes after coming out of the oven, ’cause those fuckers are hot. Top with the parsley and serve.
More cheese, then eat.
Thanks to ThugKithen for the recipe. We didn’t technically ask them for permission to publish their recipe, but those assholes can just fucking get over it.
Wraps
4 large wraps
Spinach
Cucumber sticks
Carrot sticks
*This is like peanut butter but made out of sesame seeds. It will be near the nut butters or falafel mix at the store
**Two 15-ounce cans if you aren’t simmering that shit yourself
1–To make the dressing, mix all that shit together a small glass until it is smooth and creamy. Set it in the fridge.
2–Now get the chickpeas going. Heat up the olive oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add the chickpeas and fry them until they start to turn gold and pop around a bit. You’ll see what the fuck we mean. This will take 3 to 5 minutes. In a small glass, mix together the lemon juice, maple syrup, and soy sauce. When the chickpeas are looking right, pour the lemon juice mixture over them and stir. Let that shit evaporate for about 30 seconds and then add all the spices. Stir and let them all fry together for another 30 seconds and then turn off the heat.
Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) ready to be wrapped.
3–Serve these spiced sons of bitches in a wrap with some spinach leaves and thinly sliced carrot and cucumber sticks. Drizzle some dressing over it and wrap that shit up.
HEAT YOUR WRAP!!! I made the first one without heating the wrap and really regretted it.
Yesterday, we hit the Berkley Bowl, a famous independent grocery mecca in Berkley, CA. This grocery specializes in offering a huge variety of organic and natural products. The produce section alone is mind-blowing. But we spent our time in the bulk food bins on this trip.
These beautiful Orca (aka Calypso) Beans caught my attention; so we brought them home to see what we could do with them and how they would compare to our standard black beans.
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
BLACK BEANS–1 Cup Cooked
Calories 227
Fat 1g
Carbohydrates 41g
Fiber 15
Protein 15
ORCA BEANS–1 Cup Cooked
Calories 240
Fat 1g
Carbohydrates 46g
Fiber 28g
Protein 24g
Clearly, the ORCA beans dominate when it comes to fiber and protein, but that’s not where it ends. These beautiful beans cook twice as fast as black beans and don’t require any overnight soaking. But how do they taste and how do we serve them?
Recipe: Simple Orca Bean Bowl
Ingredients:
2 cups of dried orca (calypso) beans
5 cups of water
1 teaspoon of salt
3 teaspoon olive oil
1 cube Knorr Vegetable Bullion
1 cup onion
3 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup fresh basil
1/4 cup fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste
1–Rinse beans and remove any rocks or other strange items that may be lurking. Boil them with 4 cups of water for 1 hour with a teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of the olive oil.
2–While the beans boil and in a large pot, add 2 teaspoons of olive oil, onion, garlic, basil, and parsley. Sauté that for 3 minutes or until the onions become translucent.
3–When the beans are finished boiling, rinse them and add them to your sauté pot with 1 cup of water (or more if you like your beans soupy) and the cube of vegetable bullion (hint: dice up the bullion cube before you toss it in so that it dissolves faster). Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally so the beans don’t stick to the bottom of your pot.
Now, make your bowl:
We live on bowls around here. Our standard is to layer greens, then mixed grains, then get crazy. In this case, we added carrots, celery, an heirloom tomato, tiny roasted potatoes, and of course, our beautiful new beans. Oh and we sprinkled all that with goat cheese, because it is goat cheese.What, 2 cups of dried beans makes a TON of cooked beans? Exactly, put the rest in 8 ounce containers and freeze them for next time.
Is this racist? Can a vegan cookbook even be racist? I found myself asking that question earlier this week as I thumbed through my latest amazon.com acquisition.
You see, in an effort to shake up our vegetarian cuisine routine in the kitchen, my husband purchased the #1 New York Times Bestselling cookbook, Thug Kitchen: Eat Like You Give Fuck, because it came highly recommended and we do indeed give a f%@k about what we eat.
A few years back, an anonymously written BLOG called ThugKitchen, featuring vegan recipes and healthy eating tips, where “you can be verbally abused into a healthier diet,” became poplar, prompting the spin-off of a series of cookbooks. Hence, our new cookbook and this BLOG post.
So what is racist about it? Well, the anonymously written content suggests a black male humorously intimidating the reader into preparing a healthy meal. As it turns out, a young white couple living in Los Angeles is standing behind the counter at Thug Kitchen.
This revelation came to light in 2014 prompting the debate: is this harmless inauthenticity designed to encourage healthier living or is it cyber blackface for profit? Is it wrong for two white people to pretend to be black people writing about food?
I’m not going to take a formal position; people can make up their own damn minds. And, while the concept of the cookbook does raise an eyebrow (unless you Botox), it also serves up some really stellar information and recipes in favor of healthy eating for everyone, no matter who you are.
So while the Internet debates just HOW racist this cookbook is, we have decided to try some of the recipes.
Warning: if foul language offends some of your more delicate sensibilities, this cookbook, including the recipe below, is not for you. Turn back now.
TEMPEH PEANUT NOODLES WITH BLANCHED KALE
Our notes: This cookbook offers simple recipes that don’t require obscure ingredients, take forever to prepare, or trash your kitchen.
PEANUT SAUCE
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter*
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons lime juice
2 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari
1 teaspoon maple syrup or agave syrup
1 teaspoon chili-garlic paste or Asian-style hot sauce (optional**)
NOODLES AND VEGGIES
12 ounces noodles***
6 cups kale, sliced into bite-sized pieces
1 teaspoon grapeseed or refined coconut oil
8 ounces tempeh (Tempeh is not our thing; next time we will use sprouted tofu)
1 teaspoon soy sauce or tamari
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sliced green onions
* Don’t buy peanut butter that has anything other than peanuts, a little oil, and salt listed as ingredients. Anything else is unfuckingnecessary. ** Optional but you should suck it up and do it. *** Soba, udon, spaghetti, whatthefuckever.
1–First make the peanut sauce. In a medium glass bowl, whisk together the peanut butter and water until it looks creamy. Add all the other ingredients and keep stirring until everything is incorporated. Simple shit.
Our notes: We used our stick blender to mix this sauce because that is the only way to emulsify anything in a reasonable amount of time.
2–Now cook the noodles according to the package directions, but use a larger soup pot than usual. In the last 30 seconds of cooking the noodles, add the kale to the pot and stir it into the water to make sure it’s all covered. After 30 seconds, drain the pasta and kale and run it under cold water to stop the cooking process and keep the kale green. That’s called lazy-ass blanching. Some people might say to do that shit in separate pots, but those are usually the motherfuckers who don’t wash their own dishes, so fuck them.
Our notes: This is a picture of lazy-ass blanching and it is our new favorite kitchen hack. This cookbook paid for itself with this one tip. Sorry for the crappy picture; I’m not a photographer, I work for an insurance company, and I don’t know how to photograph steam.
3–Grab a big wok or skillet and heat up the oil. Crumble in the tempeh in bite-size pieces and saute it around until it starts to brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, and garlic and cook it for 30 seconds more. Turn off the heat and add the noodles and three-quarters of the peanut sauce. Mix it all up to make sure everything is covered and that the tempeh is blended into the noodles. Taste it and it isn’t saucy enough for you, add the rest of the sauce now. Otherwise, hold on to that shit because the noodles really absorb the sauce as they sit, so it’s nice to have extra for leftovers. Top with the green onions and serve warm or at room temperature.
Our notes: This is the finished product. We garnished with chopped peanuts and limes in addition to the scallions because they made it prettier.
Overall, we loved this recipe and will work it into our menu rotation; however, the tempeh, which is fermented soy beans, was a little to funky for us (because it is fermented soy beans), so we will make this recipe using firm sprouted tofu next time. Otherwise, enjoy!
Thanks to www.thugkitchen.com for the recipe. We didn’t technically ask them for permission to publish their recipe, but those assholes can just fucking get over it.
