RECIPE: Vegan rice and pasta tofu bowls with Florette

I've never been very good at timing my blog posts properly. I've often had to turn my Christmas recipes into New Year's ones, and I have photos of an Easter cake sitting on my computer that I made last Easter Sunday and realised I'd have to wait a year to post if I wanted it to be at all timely. And all that explains why on this, the last day of January, I'm talking about Veganuary!

I didn't go vegan for January, but I know plenty of people who did. Eating a plant-based diet has plenty of potential health benefits, and ethical benefits too (you can see more at The Vegan Society). And while I don't plan to switch any time soon, I have found myself eating more vegetarian and vegan food in recent years. Florette recently challenged me to come up with some high protein, high vitamin vegan recipes, so armed with my block of tofu and some other vegan ingredients that they sent me, I got to work.



I've never cooked with tofu before, and... well, it's a weird foodstuff, isn't it? I don't feel like I completely nailed it with these recipes, but it was good to try something new, and these recipes would work with non-tofu too. I'm already planning on making the sweet and sour sauce with (whisper it) chicken, and the paprika spice mix would be excellent on roasted feta. Both of these recipes use ingredients I generally always have in my cupboard, so they're excellent ones to have in your back pocket.

Sweet & sour tofu rice salad (adapted from here)

80g pasta

1/2 block extra firm tofu

1/2 bag sugar snap peas

1 red pepper, thinly sliced

2 tbsp sunflower oil

2 tbsp cornflour, for dusting

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp ketchup

1 tbsp soy sauce

3 tbsp rice wine vinegar

75ml water

Serves 2

1. Prepare your rice and sugar snap peas according to the package instructions.

2. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, ketchup, soy sauce and vinegar and stir well until the sugar has dissolved.
3. Drain the tofu and wrap in a paper towel to remove excess water. Repeat 3-4 times until the tofu is dry. Slice into 1 inch cubes.
4. Dust the tofu with cornflour until it's well coated.
5. Heat a frying pan over a high heat and add the oil and tofu. Fry until it's slightly golden on all sides (about 7-10 minutes). Remove the tofu from the pan and replace with the red pepper.
6. Cook the pepper for 3-5 minutes until the peppers have softened but are still slightly crunchy.
7. Return the tofu to the pan, and add the sauce, sugar snap peas and the rice, stirring all together until it's coated.
8. Serve with a big handful of Florette and a sprinkle of coriander, if you like.

Paprika spiced tofu with pesto pasta salad (adapted from here)

100g pasta

1/2 block extra firm tofu

1/2 bag Florette salad

1/2 bag sugar snap peas

40g pesto

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tomatoes

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 clove garlic, crushed

Salt & pepper, to taste

Balsamic glaze, to serve

Serves 2

1. Cook your pasta and the sugar snap peas as per the package instructions. Add the peas to the pasta and stir the pesto through.
2. Pre-heat a griddle pan over a high heat.
3. Cut the tofu into 2 even slices and put on a plate.
4. Stir together oil, paprika, garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper, then coat the two slices of tofu with the mixture using a pastry brush.
5. Griddle the tofu for 4 minutes on each side until it's started to puff up, then remove from the heat.
6. Assemble your salad with a big handful of Florette, your pesto pasta and top with the tofu. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and serve.

Like I said, I still don't think I've cracked tofu. Do you have any top tips?