Multiple Recipe Drop
Broccoli Rabe, Marinated Tofu Bites, Roasted Sweet Potato, Peanut Sauce
I’m going to give you all four recipes for this veggie bowl. That way you can try one or all, and mix and match the individual pieces to create dozens of meals. In the image, the bowl is garnished with sesame seeds.
Simple Broccoli Rabe
Ingredients
1 bunch broccoli rabe
1/2 naval orange
Balsamic vinegar
Method
Rinse the broccoli rabe in a bowl of cold water, swishing and agitating to clean.
Remove the large stems and chop roughly.
Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar and massage with your hands to get the vinegar on every spot. This helps activate some of the healthiest chemical reactions, and also prevents the vegetable from excessive color fading/browning during the steaming process.
Allow to stand for ten minutes.
Steam. Heat water in any pan that has a rack that fits over the water level. When the water is boiling, drop the rabe into the rack, place over the steam, and cover.
I steamed mine a lot, until the greens were tender.
Remove from steamer. Cut the naval orange in half, and squeeze the juice from one half over the broccoli rabe.
Eat the other half of the orange.
Serve.
Marinated Tofu Bites
Ingredients
1 package extra firm tofu
1/3 cup reduced sodium tamari
1/3 cup vegan Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Method
Dice the tofu into bite sized pieces.
Mix the tamari, Worcestershire, and vinegar
Pour over cubed tofu in a shallow dish with a tight fitting lid.
Soak for two to three hours. Overnight is even better. Periodically turn the dish over to evenly distribute the juice.
To cook, heat a frying pan until a bead of water dances when dropped in. Keep the setting just above medium, not all the way on high. Pour in the tofu, marinade and all, saving just about a half cup aside. Cook until all the juice cooks out, using a spatula to stir, and turn. When it starts sticking, add the remaining half cup to deglaze, stirring the tofu all around so it gets all coated in the now thick brown goo. Cook until the juice is all cooked out again.
Take a bite. Like it? Then it’s done.
If you don’t like the texture, if it’s still a little too “wet” for you, here’s how to fix that.
Pour the cooked tofu bites into an air fry basket or other open air type basket, spreading them single layer if possible. I always put a baking sheet on the rack underneath the rack my tofu is on, in case of crumbs. Set the oven to Air Fry, and cook the bites 5 minutes, then taste one, then 5 more minutes if needed.
This will dry it out for you. I prefer mine a little more moist, but tastes vary.
Roasted Sweet Potato
Ingredients
One large sweet potato or yam
Cinnamon
Method
Slice the sweet potato or yam in half lengthwise.
Wrap each half in aluminum foil, and twist the ends closed.
Place on a baking sheet.
Bake at 400º for 20 minutes or until fork tender.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for a half hour.
Remove from tin foil, and dice, letting the skins fall off in the dicing process.
Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired.
Peanut Sauce
Ingredients
2/3 cup natural peanut butter*
*The only ingredient in natural peanut butter is peanuts. No oil, no salt. Natural peanut butter will have its own peanut oil, which you can pour off the top when you first open the jar.
2 tbsp. Maple Syrup
2 tbsp. Low Sodium Tamari
1 tbsp. Rice Vinegar
1 tbsp fresh minced ginger OR 1 tbsp organic ginger juice
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced or 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp curry powder
About a cup and a half to two cups water, added slowly
Method
If using fresh garlic and ginger, the first step is to put the minced herbs into a hot frying pan (no oil or spray) and dry sauté until they start to brown and stick, and you can really smell their fragrance.
If using garlic powder and ginger juice skip this step.
Add all remaining ingredients, but only 1 cup of the water, to a saucepan (or to the pan in which you cooked the garlic and ginger.) Be patient, it’s hard to get peanut butter to mix with water, but just stir and heat and it’ll get smooth and thick. Let it get very hot, even to bubbling a bit.
It usually comes out way too thick for me at this point, so I add a little more water, stirring after each splash until I have a nice thick sauce of the consistency I feel is right for me.
This does thicken back up quickly, however. Serve warm, and thin with more water as needed.
Serve over any food you like.
Soba Noodles
This is not really a recipe, but I thought I’d include it anyway, because there’s so much we don’t know when we first begin. Soba noodles are a whole, minimally processed, plant-based food that fit beautifully with the WFPB lifestyle. They come already-cooked in a cellophane packet and are usually found in the Asian foods aisle.
When you take them out of the packet, they’re kind of a solid noodle clump.
To prepare, you can place them in a microwave-safe bowl, add some water, 1/2 cup or so should work, cover the bowl loosely, like with a lid that’s too big for the bowl, so it just sits on top, and isn’t a tight seal. Heat for a minute in the microwave.
Take them out, stir with a fork to separate, heat for another minute if needed. Serve.
When I’m using these in a stir fry or a soup, I just dump them into the main dish and let them warm and separate with the rest of the food.
Do you know I have another lifestyle blog?
It’s all about natural magic combined with the power of a natural law few people understand, the law of attraction, which is, simply stated: like attracts like. It’s similar to the law of gravity in that it’s not a made-up law. You don’t choose to believe in gravity or not. It works on everyone in exactly the same way. By understanding the law of gravity, humans have mastered flight. I call the law of attraction the basis of non-physical physics. We are making our lives up as we go along. Once we understand how we’re doing so, we can begin to improve our experience.