16th August 2012

Yep, bibliophile that’s me. I have always loved books, ask anyone, give me a good book and I pretty much give Johnny Five a run for his money. In fact Mr Ikeda oftens quotes ‘information’ at me in a robotic type voice (there is no end to my husbands talents), saying that, I must correct him as having watched the trailer it’s actually ‘need input’. Geeks 1 – Mr Ikeda 0!!

Clearly I digress, what I am actually trying to get around to is my growing collection of recipe books, and that is what a bibliophile does: loves and collects books, maybe you are one too?! Would I have this many if I wasn’t vegan, did turning vegan spark an unrealised interest in cookery, I am pretty sure I was not as adventurous with my cooking in my pre-vegan days.

So the other day, I had not been well and to cheer myself up a little bit I bought some new books. One of which is a pre-order which I have been waiting literally years to come out and a couple of others I keep hearing good things about.

Of course this led to my other affliction rearing it’s head, the guilty conscience, also known as the ‘you have a lot of books in your cook book cupboard that you still haven’t made all the dishes you wanted to from and you’re buying more books?’. Can you really have too many cookbooks? (I think not…).

However the cure for the guilty conscience is simple, you use those books! The next thing I did that day was pull out the last book I bought, Appetite for Reduction and made a dinner using only recipes from it’s fresh, unstained pages (which are now a little dirty yay – see I do use them ).

I had never made baked tofu before until I bought this book and now it is one of my favourite things to make (see books are good investments…).

Tofu marinating p.144

I used garlic from our very own garden in the marinade

Tofu baked

Tofu plated, with garlicky mushrooms and kale (p.89), mash and silky chickpea gravy (p.56)

I always have this baked tofu with red lentil gravy, but went for the chickpea gravy which is flavoured with sage, a LOT more of it went all over the plate after the photo was taken, it was so good with the mashed potato. I froze the left over gravy as the recipe yielded too much for one sitting and is also very thick and concentrated so I preferred to water it down, I see it accompanying sausage and mash in my near future. I also made a side of the mushrooms and kale, I cleared my plate in about 2 seconds. I would definitely have this again, the only downside being it is a great deal of cooking for me to manage after a day at work.

The following day I put the leftover baked tofu to good use and made a banh mi (a genius fusion of crusty French baguette filled with Vietnamese ingredients). I spread some Plamil mayo on a granary baguette, added the tofu, topped with shredded carrot, cabbage, red onion and then drizzled in sweet chilli sauce.

Ideally I would love the time to make something new from one of my cookbooks every week, but sometimes life and work just gets in the way. Well work gets in the way I am quite content for life to happen!

Tags: Appetite for Reduction