Sunday 26 June 2011

A post with one recipe and no excuse!

Well my word it’s been a long time! I’ve never been one for excuses and if we’re honest they tend to be quite dull so I’ll just jump right in!

I’ve been so busy lately I’ve barely stopped! If I haven’t been taking the kids to new clubs and activities then I’ve been working on EVE (www.EVEwrestling.com) or writing/working on new recipes.

Somewhere along the line I also thought it would be great idea to buy both seasons of Dollhouse at once. Now, I may have mentioned that even after a life time of yoga and meditation practice I have never been the most patient lady - so when I do something such as buy a DVD box set or a new book the main objective for me is to finish it....Quickly. I’m the girl that waited in line at midnight for the Harry Potter books then didn’t sleep until I’d finished them! So, against my better judgement even though I set out saying ‘I’ll just watch one or two episodes a night’ I watched them all over roughly a 3 day period until I started to become doll-like myself.
Due to this and a couple of other ‘incidents’ (I HAD to catch up on the True Blood books!!) and the fact that I've started back at work for the first time in 4 years I thought I’d share with you one of my favourite quick and easy recipes that is coincidentally one of my families favourite dinners.

It’s a great dish full of summer time flavours and I love it as it uses un-pressed tofu so it’s a real time saver and great for those last minute dinners :-)

SIMPLE AND DIVINE ROASTED TOFU, PEPPERS & AUBERGINE

Equipment needed:

Chopping board, knife, 2 large non-stick roasting tins (or 2 large roasting tins lined with parchment paper), pastry brush, small bowl

Ingredients:

1 500g pack of firm tofu, cut in squares roughly 1cm thick (tip - cut into rectangles first then cut in half)
1 Aubergine, sliced in 1cm rounds
2 peppers (I used one red and one orange) sliced in 1 cm rounds

For the marinade:

1 tsp garlic granules
1 tbsp vegan Worcester sauce
1 tbsp maple syrup (or your preferred sweetener)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
4 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
4 tbsp soy sauce (preferably low salt)

Instructions:

1/ Preheat your oven to 210C

2/ Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a small bowl until combined and set aside

3/ Lay the tofu and aubergine out across the two large roasting tins trying your best not to overlap. You might have to squash the tofu a little but don’t worry too much if there is some slight overlapping.

4/ With a pastry brush, brush the marinade over the tofu and aubergine slices. Turn them all over and bush the other side with marinade also.

5/ Scatter the pepper slices over the top and brush with any remaining marinade. Don’t worry if you don’t have any to spare as it will be just as tasty, it just depends on how big your aubergine was.

6/ Place in preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove and turn everything over (the food not the baking trays…) and bake for 10 more minutes. I tend to rotate shelves as like a lot of ovens my oven can be patchy.



Serve on its own, with basmati rice (pictured above) or with crusty bread.

(for those wondering - I used the tidying technique learnt from Black Books for my photo's :-P)