March 7: Marinated Tofu and Roasted Veggies

This winter, we became completely addicted to roasting vegetables. It's pretty fast and super flavorful. This whole dinner was on the table in about 35 minutes from start to finish. If you can let the tofu press for a couple of hours, that's great, but any time at all helps the marinade soak in.

Marinated Tofu
about 5 oz of tofu, pressed, and cut into slices (mine were about the size of a half-slice of regular bread, and just a tad thinner) - I got four slices out of 5 oz.
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 dry cooking wine or cooking sherry
about 1 T olive oil
1 clove chopped garlic
a nickel sized slice of ginger, chopped
a sprinkle of dried pepper flakes

1. Mix the marinade ingredients together.
2. Soak the tofu in the marinade, turning periodically. The longer you soak, the deeper the flavors.
3. Fry over medium high heat until the outside gets a bit crispy. Turn so that both sides get cooked. You can also braise the tofu in the marinade if you prefer.

Roasted Vegetables
You can roast just about anything, and frankly it's a bit like stir-frying, in that the harder the veggie, the longer you roast. If you are going to roast veggies together, you don't want to mix hard ones and soft ones - or you'll have some burned to a crisp and some raw. Tonight's collection was:
carrots
parsnips
cauliflower
1. Chop the veggies into bite-sized pieces.
2. Put them in a bowl and top with olive oil then mix well.
3. Add spices (you could use salt and pepper, garlic powder, or make a mix of your favorite spices) - in this one I used zatar, a Middle Eastern spice mix.
4. Roast at 450 degrees.
5. The veggies are done when they begin to get brown on the outside. These took about 12 minutes.