Meatless Monday.

Yesterday's Meatless Monday dish was full of excitement and experimentation. Why was I so excited? Because I won a special, special jar of peanut butter from my favorite folks at Peanut Butter & Co.!



Why was it so special? Because The Heat Is On is the only PB&Co. flavor that I can't seem to find in local stores. The spicy nuttiness demanded a kitchen experiment:



(crappy camera phone shot)

Tofu & Veggie Stir-Fry with Quinoa and Spicy Peanut Sauce.

For the Stir-Fry:

• 1 block firm tofu
• Broccoli
• carrots
• oyster mushrooms
• minced garlic

For the tofu: Marinated in soy sauce, a bit of teriyaki and garlic powder. Drizzled with canola oil and then baked at 400˚F for about 40 minutes, flipping about halfway through.

I sauteéd the veggies together with the garlic, canola oil, some salt & pepper and a bit of soy sauce.

For the sauce:

• About 2 or 3 green onions, chopped
• 3 tbsp. The Heat Is On peanut butter
• about 2 tsp. rice wine vinegar
• about 2 tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. minced ginger
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• about 2 tbsp. pineapple tidbits w/ juice (I would have definitely used more pineapple, but I was finishing off what we had left in the fridge.)
• 2 tsp. honey

I whisked all of the sauce ingredients together. Added it to the veggies, threw in the baked tofu and stirred until evenly coated. Serve over quinoa (or rice) and you're all set!

This meal yielded 4 servings and was super-filling. I sampled the sauce before adding it to the stir-fry and had mixed feelings, but after tasting it with the the quinoa, tofu & veggies, it really came together quite well. And even though it took longer to bake, I was really pleased with how the tofu turned out; I liked the drier texture and it seemed to hold the flavors from the marinade a lot better.

I LOVE this flavor of PB. It's plenty spicy on its own, so I didn't need to add any other heat to the sauce. It's also pretty good with carrots, celery and even bananas! There's no sweetness in this particular variety, so it lends itself to both savory and sweet/spicy applications.

Meatless Monday.

I usually have a meatless day once or twice a week, but it doesn't always fall on a Monday... Well, today I finally timed it right!

Broccoli Tofu Stir-Fry:



Not a particularly special dish because I make it quite often, but it's one that I've more or less mastered and sometimes make with chicken.



I cooked the veggies and the tofu separately. For the veggie mix, I used:

• broccoli
• onion
• zucchini
• minced garlic
• minced ginger
• crushed red pepper
• low sodium soy sauce

Sauteéd altogether until cooked down.

For the tofu, I used this tofu prep post from Tina at Carrots 'N' Cake to get me started. I always try to drain my tofu as much as I can, but it still ends up a bit soggy, so the towel/weight method did the trick! I chopped it up and threw it in a pan with some soy sauce until those nice, crisp brown edges started to form.

Once the tofu was done, I added some Panda Express Orange Sauce and threw it all together in a bowl.



I made rice as well, but I just wanted a mess of veggies and tofu, so I skipped the rice and saved it for Doug. I ended up adding a little extra soy sauce and some Sriracha on top.

It doesn't look like the most exciting dish, but it was definitely loaded with flavor. The leftovers are gonna make a bitchin' lunch tomorrow!