Saturday, March 5, 2011

Latin Baked Tofu with Dirty Red Beans and Rice

Tonight I cooked two new dishes.  I made Latin Baked Tofu from Cadry's Kitchen.  I believe the recipe is actually from Viva Vegan with a few modifications.  I made it exactly as the recipe appears on Cadry's Kitchen, but I used a different beer and hot sauce. I also made Dirty Red Beans and Rice from 500 Vegan Recipes.  OK, I didn't have any red beans.  I could have sworn I had a can of them, but alas, I did not.  So, I used pinto beans.  I also used a brown rice mixture instead of long grain white rice.  I rarely eat white rice and I don't keep it in the house.
I baked the tofu for 20 minutes in olive oil and soy sauce.  I have used lower sodium soy sauce for years, so I don't notice any difference in flavor.  After the initial 20 minutes, I flipped the tofu and poured the marinade over it.  My pan was way too big for this as I didn't end up with any sauce by the time the baking was done.  However, the tofu still had a nice flavor.
While the tofu was baking for the final half hour, I started making the Dirty Red Beans and Rice.  I sauteed the onion, green pepper, and celery. While the trinity was sauteing, I put the rice, beans, water, soy, and a low sodium vegetable bouillon cube in the rice cooker.  
After the trinity was done cooking, I added it to the rice cooker with the rice and beans. 
 All I had to do at this point was close the lid to the rice cooker and press "cook" and let it do its thing.  I love the rice cooker.  It makes cooking rice dishes a no brainer for me and frees me up to concentrate on other aspects of the meal.
About 40 minutes later, the rice was done.  Since I used a mixture of brown rices, it took longer to cook, but I like the extra nutrition I get from using brown rice.  The tofu had finished baking and was in the oven keeping warm, so as soon as the rice was done, I was ready to dish it up and eat.
The finishing touch for me was to add a splash of Louisiana Hot Sauce on the rice.  It was the hot sauce brand I used for the Latin Baked Tofu, so I thought it would complement the meal and it did.  I didn't use it on the tofu, but it was heaven on the rice.
I'll definitely make this again.  It was an easy to make meal that didn't have a foot-long list of ingredients.  It was nice for a Saturday evening meal.  I'm thinking I can just add some vegan sausage to the rice and make some cornbread or other fresh bread and it would be a fantastic meal all by itself.

4 comments:

  1. If I could, I would reach right through my computer screen and snatch every one of those pieces of tofu!!! They look SO good! (And the rice sounds delicious too! We never use white rice either, not even in our sushi.)

    I bought Viva Vegan around the holidays and have yet to make anything out of it!

    Doesn't Cadry have a wonderful blog?

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  2. The tofu was excellent. I'm relatively new to cooking with tofu and this was the first time I baked it. It was so easy and very tasty.

    Cadry has a great blog. I really enjoy looking through it. I'm amazed at the number of wonderful blogs I have found, yours included!

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  3. I'm so glad your first attempt at baked tofu was a big success!

    I thought I'd share my favorite recipe for baked tofu with you, it's also easy and delicious (maybe too delicious, it's hard not to eat an entire block of tofu in one sitting this way!) There are various ways to prepare it - baked or fried, coated or uncoated - but we always just marinade it for several days and then bake it on a dark, un-oiled, nonstick cookie sheet. (If you let it cool for about 5 minutes before turning or removing the tofu cutlets, they'll come right off the cookie sheet without sticking).

    Bryanna Clark-Grogan's "Breast of Tofu"

    This recipe used to be on her web site, but she's been reorganizing it and it's not there anymore. At least not yet!

    Thank you very much for the compliment! I'm flattered that you enjoy my blog, and you are right - there are an amazing number of fantastic vegan blogs out there, and I'm happy yours has joined them! Isn't it fun? :-)

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  4. Thanks! I will definitely try the tofu recipe. It looks great!

    It is fun and my true joy in it is reading everyone's blogs. I've learned so much and tried so many new recipes, it makes my head spin sometimes. :::smile:::

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