Organic Vegan Tofu Summer Rolls

After whipping up a Thai-inspired noodle dish, I decided to take things a couple steps further and attempt Summer Rolls and not Spring Rolls because I was trying to stay as far away from deep fried as possible. As Dennis Hopper said in a "Saturday Night Live" opening monologue, "There was always one thing I stayed away from - fried food. Laugh now, but that last donut killed Elvis."

To tweak my earlier recipe, work from that, but with the following adjustments. Read through this recipe from beginning to end before starting because some of the later sections overlap.

N.B. All ingredients should be organic. If you can find organic toasted sesame seed oil, I tip my hat to you.

The Sauce
Non-emulsified peanut butter
1 large lemon
3 cloves garlic, minced
grated ginger (to taste)
powdered cayenne pepper
salt
toasted sesame seed oil

Using a tea strainer to catch the seeds, juice the lemon into a large bowl. Discard the seeds, but toss the pulp in. Add three to four liberally heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter along with a few pinches of salt and a few dashes of toasted sesame seed oil. Depending upon how masochistic you are, use a few shakes of chili powder along with the diced garlic cloves and mix well. The sauce should be rather thick. Set aside and prepare your veggies:

Veggies
3 green onions, diced
1 large carrot, grated
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 fistful of fresh basil w/ stems, minced
1 small fistful of curly parsley, minced
1 slightly larger fistful of cilantro, minced
A few handfuls of roughly chopped up organic raw peanuts, shelled (duh)

After mincing, dicing, and grating up your veggies, mix them together and mix in a couple spoonful of the sauce. It won't mix as well as you'd think, and you will eventually need some more toasted sesame seed oil (you did save some, right?).

N.B. Organic raw peanuts aren't as difficult to find as you would think. They are more expensive, however, and they're smaller than conventional peanuts, but they're tastier and absofuckinglutely worth it in my mind.

If you're feeling artsy-fartsy, you may want to use a few extra big ass basil leaves in between the filling and the rice paper wraps. I was just nervous about fucking up the rice paper wraps having never worked with them before. More on those later.

Tofu,My Brothas & Sistas
1 pound extra firm tofu, drained & diced

Heat up a wok, but do NOT add any oil yet. Using a good sharp kitchen utility knife, slice the block of tofu into about 4 - 5 sheets before cutting into smaller cubes. Toss the tofu into the wok and sear until it begins to stick to the pan (depending upon your wok and how hot it is, this should take a few minutes). Add in a couple spoonfuls of the sauce and add in a few tosses of the toasted sesame seed oil. Mix so that the sauce and oil is evenly distributed. Remove from heat and toss into your veggies. Mix thoroughly. If you have any sauce left, mix that in with a couple shakes of toasted sesame seed oil. You want the mixture to be chunky but not unwieldy.

The Noodles
I used a box of Annie Chung's Pad Thai rice noodles. They don't have to be that particular brand I guess, and from what I saw at Whole Foods, the different Pad Thai rice noodle packages all seemed about the same size.

Start boiling water for the noodles in a deep pot right before you heated up the wok. Once the water reaches a rapid boil, toss in the noodles. Cook for about 5 minutes, then drain teh noodles in a colander before returning to the pot to "shock" cool them down in ice cold water. You may have to drain again and shock the noodles again until they're cool. At that point drain the noodles well, and return to the pot. Cut them up with a pair of scissors. The reason for this is that you want them to be small enough to be spooned onto the rice paper skins. Mix the cut up noodles into your veggies & sauce mixture.

You're pretty much done except for the last part.

The Rice Paper Skins
Finding these wasn't too difficult at Whole Foods. You might also find them easily at a Vietnamese or Thai grocery store.

While they look stiff and mildly flexible, After soaking them, they're easy to use. They don't tear all that easily, so don't be frightened by their filmy nature after soaking them. You'll need a small shallow pan of cool water. Soak the rice paper skins one by one in the pan for a few seconds. Place the wet, filmy skin on your plate, spoon in the noodles & veggies mix, and wrap it up as you would a burrito.

With some practice, you should be able to wrap these up to set aside in a container for another meal or picnic. The mixture should serve about 4 hungry bastards, and you should still have some leftover skins. Keep the leftovers dry in a bag.

Organic Vegan Buckwheat Noodle Tofu Salad

I was debating what to title this. It's not really Thai, but I suppose it's "Thai-inspired." It's incredibly easy to make, but you'll need to get things in order to pull it off quickly.

N.B. Ingredients should be organic whenever possible. The only thing I wasn't able to find organically was the toasted sesame oil.

INGREDIENTS:
1 package Buckwheat Noodles (three bundles)
Non-emulsified peanut butter
3 large green onions
1 handful curly parsley
1 large lemon
1 large carrot
4 cloves garlic
ginger (to taste)
chili powder (to taste)
1 pound extra firm tofu
salt
fresh basil

NOTES: The peanut butter I used was organic from Woodstock Farms. It was non-emulsified with a layer of oil on top. This means you'll have to stir it up in the jar before using. It also usually means that this kind of peanut butter will be a wee bit looser than conventional peanut butter (great for sauces, but not as great for a PBJ sammich). I've also found that it's a bit looser than freshly-ground peanut butter.

DIRECTIONS:
Heat up a wok, but do not add oil. Dice the tofu and sear the tofu until crispy. Stir every now and then to prevent sticking to the wok. While the tofu is cooking, Put about three big heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter in a mixing bowl. If I had to guess, I'd say use about 2/3rds of a cup. Juice the lemon and remove the seeds. Mix that into the peanut butter. Add the toasted sesame oil. Add salt, chili powder, and freshly grated ginger to taste. This mixture should have the consistency of a thick sauce, so you may need to add more toasted sesame oil. When the tofu is crispy, place it in a bowl to cool.

Start boiling water for the noodles in a large pot. While you're waiting for the water to roil, mince the garlic and add to the sauce. Grate the carrot and mince the parsley and green onions. Add to the sauce along with the tofu. Mix together. Boil the buckwheat noodles for a few minutes until al dente. Drain, and then soak for about a minute in ice cold water. Drain again. Return noodles to pot and then mix in the sauce. Roughly chop up a couple handfuls of fresh basil and add.

Serves 4.

Vegan Ginger Lemon Crusted Tofu with Forbidden Rice & Veggies

This was dinner tonight. It wasn't as hard to make as you'd think, and while I'd love to provide more accurate details, I played it by ear.

For the batter:
Organic corn meal (fine grain)
1 Organic Lemon
Organic Ginger
3 Cloves of Organic Garlic
Organic Agave Syrup
Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Habanero based hot sauce (to taste)
Red Pepper flakes

Organic Tofu

3 cups organic rice
1.5 tbsps vegetable soup mix

Few Cloves of Organic Garlic
1 Organic Green Bell Pepper
1 Organic Purple Onion
A pinch of sea salt
Soy Sauce to taste

Drain the tofu and slice into 6 equal pieces. Lay them carefully in a towel & wrap a couple times to absorb the water.

Put the vegetable soup mix in with the rice before cooking. Depending upon the soup mix, it may clump, so whisk together with an egg beater. Start the rice in a cooker.

Juice the lemon into a mason jar using a tea strainer to catch the pulp & the seeds. Throw out the seeds, and add the juice & pulp to a bowl. Grate a fair amount of ginger root into the bowl. Add the corn meal (I used about 3 tbsps) and oil. Mix in a few drops of really good hot sauce & a pinch of red pepper flakes. Dice the garlic and add in along with the agave syrup. Use the syrup sparingly. You want the batter slightly sweet - not cloyingly so. The same could (and should) be said about the hot sauce. You want a little heat - not hellfire.

While the tofu is drying out, dice a few small cloves of garlic & set aside in a small bowl. Dice the green bell pepper & the onion. Fry up the diced garlic in a flat pan along with some olive oil. Toss in the diced bell pepper & onion. Fry the veggies lightly & add in a wee bit of salt and soy sauce. Transfer the veggies to a bowl, and add more oil to the pan for the tofu.

Unwrap the tofu. Dip each piece in the batter and fry until both sides are nicely browned. You may have to add more batter to the tofu as it will not stick like conventional egg-based batter.

Serve with the veggies over rice.