VeggieDag Thursday: Barbeque

I shopped at the Farmers Market on Saturday. Picked up a few sprigs of herbs, some end-of-the-season asparagus, and start-of-the-season berries.

Sunday, I grilled the asparagus, tossing it beforehand with olive oil, Herbs de Provence, s/p.

Rob Kasper ran a column in the Baltimore Sun about grilling veggies. He uses a grilling basket; I placed the asparagus spears on a piece of aluminum foil, folded up at the edges, pierced several times.

The 'main course' was grilled marinated ... toad-food.

A favorite meal for my 4-year old step-daughter had been what she would call "toad-food": tofu, blocks of soybean curd. It's a great protein source, but since it's fairly flavorless on its own, the trick is what you do with it. Or as she and I would say: "You have to use the secret sauce."

I adapted this recipe from the blog Vegan Dad: Ultimate BBQ Tofu.

The day before, squeeze the water out of the tofu block by placing it between two plates, weighted on top. (I used soup cans.) Slice the block half vertically, and then horizontally, making 4 thin blocks.

Place them in a sweet and spicy marinade. Vegan Dad has an easy and delicious home-made alternative to commercial sauces laden with additives and high fructose corn syrup.

Now here's the 'secret sauce' part: Freeze the tofu, marinade and all, overnight. The next day, when thawed, the tofu blocks will have gained a chewy texture, and be less likely to fall apart on the grill.

On the grill: a few minutes on each side, liberally basted with the remaining marinade. Serve with —of course— a good, local, Pale Ale.




************************

Thursdays at Yours For Good Fermentables.com are meatless Thursdays —as inspired by Veggiedag in Ghent, Belgium.

Tom Balthazar [mayor of Ghent, Belgium] has officially declared Thursday meatless in his city of nearly a quarter million people. In an effort to make the connection between meat consumption and greenhouse gases (18 percent of which come from livestock production), Balthazar has asked his fellow civil servants to abstain from meat every Thursday.

Kim O'Donnel
Mighty Appetite
Washingtonpost.com