No-Meat Vegetarian Loaf

 I, personally, am not a vegetarian. I'm an omnivore. I eat meat. Not a lot, mind you – since my girlfriend is a vegetarian, I rarely if ever eat any at all these days. I suppose a better way to put it might be to say that while my diet is chiefly vegetarian, I myself am not. I don't really miss eating meat, and the less I eat the less I crave it, particularly when there are meat-ish dishes like this available.

This vegetarian meatless-loaf is healthy, hearty, and delicious. We use, as in most of our recipes, locally sourced ingredients. The base for our loaf is firm tofu purchased from Phoenix Bean. I never really liked tofu as a kid, but after tasting some of their demos at the farmer's market, they've really grown on me. We're also using previously cooked brown rice, bread crumbs, and shredded vegetables – a carrot, a beet, a small onion, and a jalapeno for a little kick, but you can basically use whatever veggies you have on hand. We're also mixing in chopped walnuts, and a few spices – garlic (or Dijon) mustard, soy sauce, and a few grinds of black pepper.

We're going to use barbecue sauce, both in the mix and atop the loaf. In this case we went with a surprisingly delicious apple barbecue from Hillside Orchards. Yes, we get a lot of good stuff from them.

Preparations for No-Meat Vegetarian Loaf

Preheat the oven to 350. While it's warming up, blend 16 ounces of tofu with a mixer until its achieved a smooth consistency, and mix in the spices – we used 2 tsp of the garlic mustard, 3 tsp of soy sauce, a quarter cup of the barbecue sauce, and just a few grinds of black pepper. You'll want to mix the chopped vegetables (one of each), walnuts (a cup), bread crumbs (2 cups), and brown rice (1 cup) together in a separate bowl.

Messy Fun – Without the Meat!

This is the fun part. Or the gross part. Probably a little bit of both, depending on your individual predilections. You're going to dump the vegetable mix into the tofu, and sort of squelch it all together with your hands, like you're making mud pies. This is messy. And cold. But it's gotta be done, so enjoy having your hands wrist deep in food that you're going to be serving later. I really wish I didn't have to remind you to wash your hands, but... yeah. Wash your hands first. And after.

Cooking the Meatless Loaf

Grease yourself up a baking pan, pack your goop into it, and top with a layer of barbecue sauce. Bake that sucker for an hour, and let it stand for about ten to fifteen minutes afterwards before serving.

What you end up with is a firm loaf of tofu, rice, and veggies that's good for you and very filling. The fact that it tastes great doesn't hurt too much either.

Bonus Round: Potatoes

As a side dish we cut some potatoes up into chunks and tossed them with olive oil, salt, and herbs (sage and rosemary, but you can use whatever). We let them bake on a baking sheet while the loaf was baking. Man, I love me some potatoes.

Do I miss meat? Heck, most days I don't even remember that I'm not eating any! What about you, readers? Have you gone vegetarian, or thought about it? Has it been difficult for you to make the transition?

By Michael Coorlim

The Community of the Farmers' Market

I've written before about how the farmers' market becomes a community. The foundation of a community is, of course, its people. I return to the market week after week, see the same people, have conversations, make friends. Advice on what to make for dinner, or shared excitement at a personal achievement — these are stories shared and connections made that build this community.

Vera and I have been friends since the early days of the market. She and I have a shared interest in the arts. She always asks after my current projects. She herself is a writer and crafter; in addition to unusual vegetables, she farms, spins, and dyes her own woolen yarn, and knits one-of-a-kind fashions. She has a hand in the creative process from sheep to skirt.

She has been one of my main go-to resources for food and cooking ideas, and has encouraged me to be a little more experimental in my cooking. It's because of her that I first tried cooking with lavender... and then proceeded to spend that entire summer putting lavender in everything. Lavender scones, lavender lemonade, lime-lavender granitas, lavender cinnamon rolls (a failed experiment due to a bad dough recipe), and even honey-lavender ice cream (which was amazing).

I'm still getting the hang of flavoring with herbs, but if I have questions about her lavender, sage, or fennel, I know I'll get good advice from her.

Susie always greets me with a smile and cheerfully offers free samples of every kind. Her company, Phoenix Bean, is responsible for some pretty amazing tofu products. She is also a great resource for recipe ideas, which then allow me to further experiment; I got the idea for the tofu noodle salad from the recipe cards available at her booth, but I've been able to spin endless variations on that basic theme.

Susie maintains this amazing, delicate balance of keeping her busy booth running smoothly, while happily chatting with any customer who will pause a moment to do so. She loves people, and is very welcoming and interested in your stories. In fact, she was so excited to hear about this blog, she gave us that week's tofu for free.

This is Lindsey, who is very chill and laid back, and knows her vegetables like the back of her hand. An off-hand remark about my tomato plants not producing well this year led to an enlightening discussion on how weather affects tomatoes. Which then led to a conversation about summer foods and how we both love Caprese salad, which was why I needed her tomatoes in the first place. She runs Grassroots Farm in Wisconsin.

Really — ask her anything about her vegetables, she knows the answer.

And no discussion of community is complete without Brady. He is, in essence, the social hub of the farmers' market. Did you know about the new vendor selling amazing flavored syrups this year? Brady knows. Need a contact for an interview? Brady can hook you up. Need dinner ideas? Brady can casually come up with flavor combinations that I never would have dreamed of — I think he was the first one to turn me on to chocolate basil ice cream.

Brady's wares are another delicious Food in my Food "cheat." All-natural, locally-sourced baked goods keep me well-fed at breakfast when I've run out of time to bake my own. I look forward to Thursday morning breakfast entirely because I've got some BTrue muffins or coffee cake waiting for me.

Long before Brady was the BTrue Baker, he was my hairdresser, which was how we met. And when I became sick, and no longer had hair to dress, he referred me to Look Good Feel Better, a program he happened to volunteer for. By now we have known each other for so long, through myriad life changes for both of us, that he certainly qualifies as one of my oldest friends.

Small communities are important. Particularly in an urban environment, it's so easy to become so lost in the sheer numbers of people that you become isolated. How many of you know the names of your next-door neighbors? People need connection with other people; it's food for the soul as much as Food in my Food is food for the body... and soul. Communities are where we make them; our friends, the farmers' market, even taking time to remember and indulge in the joys of cooking and eating a meal with someone else. Personal connection is vital to well-being; it's our responsibility to ourselves to seek out and create these communities.

Who are your communities?

Tofu Noodle Salad

Tofu noodles from Phoenix Bean are just great. Made fresh shortly before we bought them at the Farmer's Market, they make a great snack food right out of the bag and can be used in almost any way that noodle pastas are. We decided to make a salad out of them.





Preparation

The noodles are fairly long, so we cut them up into manageable lengths before using them. One package was enough to make our salad, and we also chopped up a cucumber, tomato, and a bunch of mushrooms. We went ahead and shredded a golden beet to add some sweetness to the mix.

To balance that out, our dressing was an eighth of a cup of olive oil and an eighth of a cup of spicy vinegar, handcrafted by Ruby Sara. The vinegar was really amazing, infused with ginger root, turmeric, and cayenne pepper. Into the dressing base we added crumbled goat cheese and mixed the whole concoction together until it was nice and creamy.

When we were ready to eat our salad we drizzled it with the dressing we'd made, tossed it all together with a little sea salt, and topped the whole thing with crumbled sweet potato tortilla chips for some added crunch and texture.

The Results

Our tofu noodle salad turned out spectacularly, with a spicy southwestern tang to it. The noodles were tender and moist, and the handcrafted vinegar made for an excellent dressing. None of the ingredients were very expensive or hard to acquire, and the results were decadent bordering on guilt — I can't help but think that I'm not well off enough to eat so well!

Thai Curry Vegetable and Tofu Stir-Fry

Michael is convinced that I'm this excellent cook. But the reality is, the majority of my cooking consists of "dump in pot, heat, flavor, hope for the best." The "flavor" part is often where things go awry; I'm getting a little better at it, so currently it's about a 50-50 shot whether it is awesome or flavorless.

Anyway, the point is, cooking doesn't have to be elaborate or complicated, and often the "dump in a pot" method works out quite well.  Simple can be great.  And this is all stir-fry really is.  The method is uncomplicated: cut everything up, throw it in a large pan with some olive oil, add the sauce at the end.

It's really the ingredients that make something like this special. Sometimes you can find fun and unusual things at the farmers' market.  Sometimes you just need to get rid of that zucchini, because what else can you do with a zucchini? It's also a good way to use up whatever is sitting in the fridge needing to be used up.  So.

Yes, these beans are purple. I get them from my friend Vera from Videnovich Farms. They are called Purple "Velour" Filet Beans. I have no idea what that means, but I like them because they are goth beans.

The fun thing about these is that they turn green when you cook them. I also got that hot banana pepper from Vera. I only used half because they're a bit more powerful than jalapeños.

The tofu is from Phoenix Bean, which is located approximately spitting distance from their booth at the market. They have a whole variety of tofu products, including this stuff which is pre-fried and makes this whole stir-fry thing a lot easier. I'm not sure I could actually get that nice browning myself.

The Thai curry sauce is from Trader Joe's. Someday I may feel up to concocting such sauce myself. In the meantime, TJ's is my favorite "cheat," because they're cheap, good, and their philosophy is largely the same as mine: if it's not food then it shouldn't be in food.

Here's that "dump in the pot and heat" part of the recipe. It's soooo harrrd.

This is zucchini, green onion, banana pepper, and the beans. Note the purple beans gradually turning green.

The tofu I cubed and added in a little later once the beans were mostly cooked.

And here's the "flavor" part. Luckily we're not relying on me for this. Thank you Trader Joe's.

I used about half the bottle for this. There's a lot of food in there.

Finis. Also, YUM. Mix with brown rice and away you go.

The nice thing about this is you can have near-endless variations, depending on what you find at the farmers' market.

Who knew beets came in golden?

Yes, these beans are flat, and white with purple speckles. More from Vera; they're called, appropriately enough, Dragon Tongue beans.

Once again, the purple goes away when you cook them. They end up a middling cream color.

Here we have fried tofu, golden beet, Dragon Tongue beans, green bell pepper, and the last half of the banana pepper.

YUM.