****January is Veganuary month****
If you're not already plant-based, can I tempt you into trying just one meat-free meal? You never know, you might like it! Perhaps it could become a once a week (or more) habit? If you don’t like the word vegan consider it plant-based, and unless you can afford grass-fed animal meat, consider it healthy.
Most of us like to think we love animals, unfortunately most of us are culpable in what, in hundreds of years’ time will be looked upon as the abomination that was factory farming. I don’t want to give you nightmares as to the utter cruelty of factory or intensive farming, but just consider the basics, mothers are separated from their young, these animals are traumatised and mourn as much as you or I would.
For those that are now huffing and puffing about being top of the food chain, consider this, unless you raise, kill and eat your own meat, you are dependent upon the shops opening tomorrow, that’s the extent to which you are top of the food chain!
Tofu, pronounced tow-foo, made from fermented soya beans, is a versatile food, especially the firm variety. If you can afford organic, for your health, that is the best to buy, as it is for any food stuff. Aldi sell a good range of plant-based foods, including some organics, as do most of the larger supermarkets. It stores in its sealed packet, in the fridge for several weeks.
One of the things I’ve found hard to give up is dairy. Having been a milk lover, after about a month on soya ‘milk’, I could no longer bear the taste of cow’s milk. Soya milk takes a bit of getting used to, stick with it for a week or two and you too may find you don’t want to go back. One thing that is hard to give up is cheese. Cheese is such a wonderful food, and hard to replace, and one of the last things that I am giving up. Nutritional Yeast is a savoury alternative, I sprinkle this on my salads and meals to replace cheese, and it’s doing a great job thus afar.
Here’s a quick recipe that I rely on to stop me snacking on sugary foods and it doubles up as a filler for my packed lunch of salad leaves, lentils, chick peas, tofu and a minute sprinkling of yeast and sea salt.
What you need to buy
For 4 Servings
A 450 (ish) gram pack of Firm tofu
A bunch of Spring Onions
A dash of olive oil
A blob of dairy-free ‘butter’ (I use Nuttelex pulse buttery)
A few dashes of Soy Sauce (I use Kikkoman’s less salt)
Add Sea Salt to taste, if it isn’t salty enough for you!
Utensils required
A knife
A wooden spoon or spatula
A 50cm deep frying pan
How to Prepare
Trim the Spring Onions and cut into 3cm lengths
Slice the tofu
First down the narrow edge, to create two slabs
Then along the long side to create 1.5cm wide strips
Then cut the strips into 1.5cm cubes
Easy Peasy!!!
How to cook
Heat the butter and olive oil in the frying pan
Add the Spring Onions to the frying pan,
Stir occasionally on a medium heat
Cook until caramelisation (turns a bit brown) starts
You may need to add some more ‘butter’ and/or olive oil, probably not though
Add the tofu to the frying pan with the spring onions
Stir occasionally on a medium to low heat
Cook until the tofu is evenly caramelised
With the onions and tofu still in the frying pan
Drizzle a good quantity of soy sauce over the food
Cook for 10 minutes on a low heat
How to eat
My preference is to eat it cold, it’s much tastier, but you can re-heat in other foods
Add to a salad
Snack on it
Re-heat in stir-fried vegetables and/or noodles
Re-heat with Chick Peas and Lentils
Or just use in the place of chicken
Once cooked, I store mine in the fridge for up to 3 days in a plastic container, without dying!
Cost
Pack of Tofu from Aldi (not organic) around $3.80 aussie dollars
Bunch of Spring Onions (not organic) around $2.50 aussie dollars
Tofu can be used in so many places, such as in curries and sliced up thinly and use in a fry-up instead of bacon, make sure you caramelise it for best taste, or buy some Tempeh (pronounced Tem-pay), which is similar, usually flavoured.
Enjoy your cruelty free meal, I pray you will love it or can at least tolerate it, to make it a regular thing, thank you from the animals ❤
I’ve found that it takes ages to brown tofu, unless you squeeze It like crazy (even the firm sort) on a tea-towel to dry it, and then fry it at about 100000 degrees centigrade.