Forked Chicago

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Almond Crusted Tofu

The moment I saw the pistachio crusted tofu on Fat Free Vegan, I immediately wanted it. But of course when I went to Whole Foods that night, they were all out of shelled pistachios. So almond crusted tofu it was! Sure, it's not as pretty as the original, being so beige and all, but it's still crunchy and delicious. And I learned that the combination of Veganaise, German mustard, maple syrup, and soy sauce actually tastes good. So all in all a success, and a good way to use up the ridiculous amount of almonds lingering in my freezer, hiding behind leftover chickpea cutlets and half-used flours.


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Monday, May 19, 2008

Mexican Pizza, or: What Happens When I Have to Shop at Jewel


Dan and I were on our way home from work and I had nothing planned for dinner. Completely out of character, we decided to go to Jewel. I'll admit that I have an aversion to normal (i.e., not Whole Foods) grocery stores--something about the two aisles containing nothing but chips and soda--but I'm really against Jewel. It always smells funny. It probably comes from years of living in Wicker Park, home to Junkyard Jewel, which is a truly disgusting place. Plus, the lines are always super long. But at the Jewel I ended up, on a search for something to use as a pizza crust. I knew there wouldn't likely be anything actually pizza-crust-like to be had, but I thought I'd at least find pita bread. Nope. No pita bread in the whole store. After walking up and down the "natural foods" aisle (gee, that's a lot of cereal and soy milk) six or seven times, I spied some refried black beans (thank you, Amy), and the Mexican pizza was born. Another search turned up some flour tortillas with fewer than twenty ingredients--as well as a pile of super moldy tortillas. Yum. After an incredibly long wait in line, it was home to assemble the suckers. And you might look at this creation and say, "That looks like a tostada." Yes, it does look like a tostada, but we wanted pizza, so it's pizza. Refried black beans between two flour tortillas, topped with melted Teese, olives, red and yellow peppers, avocado, mango, and a lot of Cholula and baked until crispy and melty. Sure, it didn't quite satisfy the pizza craving, but it was still pretty incredible. How can anything topped with avocado and mango be anything less?

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