I mentioned in an earlier post that we got several new and exciting cookbooks for Christmas–this meal is one of the first we made using our favorite of the bunch, Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen. It’s full of really wonderful recipes (complete with soul soundtrack suggestions), which we tend to adapt to make them vegetarian, rather than strictly vegan. This is partially because we don’t tend to keep things like rice milk on hand, and partially because we’ve never really gotten over our love of butter.
This particular night, we made our own version of Terry’s cumin-cayenne mashed potatoes, greens with lemon-tahini dressing, and rosemary roasted tofu.
I’ll start with the tofu, since it was the simplest. We cut a package of tofu into large-ish bite size pieces–though, if I were doing this again, I’d recommend going with something a bit larger, since they got pretty crunchy–and gently tossed them in a mixture of olive oil, salt, paprika and rosemary. We then roasted the tofu in a 450 degree oven for about half an hour. When they came out, they were golden brown (thanks, Paprika!), with a nice texture and flavor. Simple, but really good.
We served the tofu over the potatoes, which have quickly become one of my favorite things to make. While I’m boiling the potatoes (I like yellow or red ones for this), I caramelize an entire yellow or Vidalia onion in olive oil mixed with a bit of salt, a couple of tablespoons of cumin and a little cayenne pepper. When the potatoes are done, I mash them together with the onion mixture, plus butter and milk (sorry, Bryant Terry and vegans!), and a bit of black pepper for good measure. The results are seriously amazing. Your potatoes shall be revolutionized.
The greens we made were a combination of kale and spinach, though the recipe called for Swiss chard. We started by sauteeing a sliced shallot in butter, then added the greens (minus the stalks) and cooked them for a few minutes. While this was happening, we made a dressing by mixing tahini with lemon juice, salt, water, minced garlic and balsamic vinegar. We finished the whole thing by tossing the warm greens in the dressing. And when we were done? Well, I really can’t say enough about the virtues of these greens. Look, I know what you’re thinking:
“That woman is crazy if she thinks I’m putting hummus ingredients on my greens.”
Look, I get it. I was skeptical too. In fact, my actual words were, “this is going to taste like we dunked our greens in hummus, and then threw vinegar on them.” But let me tell you: this is not a bad thing. I am not going to sit here and claim that the greens didn’t bear a striking taste resemblance to hummus. Here’s what I will say, though–what if they did? Would that be so bad? Free your mind, people. Let your greens be whoever they want to be. We’ve been letting them be pork-y for years, and lord knows collards don’t taste like fatback in the wild. Imagine a world in which kale can taste like hummus, tofu can be crunchy and satisfying, and mashed potatoes are earthy, spicy and sweet all at once.
Bryant Terry has seen that world. I have glimpsed it. And it is good.
Philosophers at Home 