Tofu “Sour Cream” Dip for One

This tastes surprisingly sour, almost like sour cream.

4 ounces silken tofu (about ¼ package)

Juice from a wedge of lemon

1 clove garlic

Pinch of salt

1 TBLSP vegan mayonnaise

1 green onion, finely chopped

2 TBLSP fresh parsley, finely chopped (1/2 TBLSP dried will suffice in a pinch)

1 TBLSP fresh dill, finely chopped (1/2 TBLSP dried will do it too 

1. Combine tofu, juice, garlic, and salt in a food processor or blender, and whirl until smooth.
2. Remove from the processor and add in the mayonnaise, green onion, parsley, and dill. Taste for salt and possibly pepper
3. Chill for at least ½ an hour before serving.

Makes a good dip, or use it as a topping for potatoes (I like it on sweet potatoes), or you could mix it into your pasta sauce or plop it on your steamed veggies.

Seen here over steamed veggies (broccoli, string beans, mushrooms, onion, zucchini, and kale) and rice. 

Tofu Frittata for One

Breakfast can be quick and clean, or it can be slow and messy. This treat is a tasty combination of both, plus it will keep your engine purring all day long.

2 ounces silken tofu (about ¼ of a package)

1 TBLSP vegan butter

1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch or arrowroot

Pinch of baking powder

Pinch of salt

Pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Pinch pf turmeric

Pinch of onion powder

Pinch of garlic powder

Pinch of kala namak, or black sea salt

½ TBLSP olive oil

¼ onion, diced small

1 mushroom, diced

¼ zucchini, shredded

2 TBLSP frozen or fresh corn kernels

4 or 5 zucchini slices and some onion shreds for the top

Sprinkles of shredded vegan cheese

1. In a blender or food processor, combine tofu, butter, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, pepper, turmeric, onion and garlic powders, and the kala namak. Set aside.
2. In a small oven-safe skillet (non-stick, if you’ve got it), heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and mushrooms and let them cook until they’re soft but not completely cooked through, 2 minutes or so.
3. Add the zucchini and corn to the onions and cook for another 2 or 3 minutes.
4. Pour in the tofu mixture and turn the heat down to medium-low. Stir the contents a few times to make sure that it’s all pleasantly intermingled and smooth the top. Decorate with zucchini and mushroom slices. Let it cook undisturbed for 15 minutes.
5. Place the skillet under the broiler and let it cook for 3 minutes, until the top is browned.  Watch it like a hawk so that it doesn’t burn. When it’s golden, bring it out to sprinkle the cheese on it—not much! A little bit is all you need—and put it under the broiler again for another minute or so. Be sure to protect your hand from the hot handle!

Let it sit on a wire rack (or the stove’s burner) for 15-20 minutes before removing from the pan and devouring. Eat the whole thing! You’ve earned it!  

Kale and Broccoli Nomlette for One

This is a quick and dirty omelet, just the thing when you have a long day of work ahead of you.

For the Filling:

Olive oil

Broccoli, chopped randomly and coarsely

3 slices onion, chopped coarsely

Handful of kale, chopped coarsely

1 clove garlic, chopped fine

3 TBLSP faux cheese (I like daiya mozzarella), shredded

Avocado

For the Nomlette:

4 oz. (1/3 package) silken tofu

2 TBLSP almond milk

1 ½ TBLSP nutritional yeast

1 TBLSP corn starch

1 teaspoon white or yellow miso

1/8 teaspoon onion powder

1/8 teaspoon turmeric

Salt and pepper to taste

A pinch of kala namak (black salt) (optional—adds an eggy taste)

Make the Filling:

1. Sauté the onions and broccoli in olive oil. 
2. When the onions are partially transparent, add the kale and garlic. When the kale has relaxed, set aside.

Make the Omelet:

1. In a blender or food processor, whirl away at the tofu, milk, yeast, corn starch, miso, onion powder, turmeric, salt and pepper, and kala namak until it’s smooth.
2. Slosh a little more olive oil into a non-stick skillet or omelet pan and heat it on medium high until it’s very hot. Pour the tofu mixture into the center of the skillet and smear it in a large circle evenly around the pan. It should be about 6-8 inches across. You might use a spatula or a spoon to smooth the top, just to make sure there aren’t any thin places.
3. When it starts to have bubbles fairly evenly across the top, spread the cheese across half of it, making a half-moon shape right to the edge.

Assemble the Nomlette:

1. Once the batter is starting to firm up enough that you can peel an edge up with your spatula, place your filling ingredients on top of the cheese on one half of it.
2. When the edges have dried out and the middle is no longer jiggly, loosen the omelet by sliding a spatula under the edges. You might want to work your way around, making sure that the omelet is free on all sides. If it’s not moving loosely in the pan, it’s not set, and if you try the next step too soon, you’re going to have scrambled tofu instead of an omelet. Don’t worry. It will still be quite yummy.
3. When it’s set, fold the empty half of the omelet over the full half. If your naked omelet half is oriented away from the handle of the pan, you can tip the pan and let gravity help a bit as you use your spatula to lift the rest. You can’t really flip this omelet the way you might an egg omelet or a crepe—it’s neither thin nor dry enough.
4. Slide it onto a plate and serve immediately. I garnished mine with avocado slices and some grapes.

Life is good. 

Apricot-Glazed Fried Tofu for One

If you’re like me and you’re allergic to tomatoes but you sometimes have a hankering for barbecue sauce, you’re going to be happy about this recipe. Try it on soft cauliflower and crunchy fried tofu, and you may find that your world has been rocked.

For Serving:

Brown or white rice, or noodles

½ block firm tofu

½ cup cauliflower florets

1 small handful of green beans, cut to bite-sized

For the Sauce:

3 TBLSP apricot preserves

2 TBLSP miso (yellow or white)

2 TBLSP rice vinegar

2 TBLSP soy sauce or tamari

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

1 apricot, pitted and sliced thinly

For the Frying:

¾ teaspoon flax seed meal

1 teaspoon water

4 teaspoons all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Pinch of baking powder

Oil for frying

Deal with the Tofu:

1. Heat the waffle iron. Yes, the waffle iron. Don’t question! Just do it!
2. Slice the block of tofu in half so that you have slabs about 1-inch thick. Press the slabs between two plates with a couple of cans on top of them for 15 minutes or so to get the moisture out.
3. Lubricate your waffle iron even if it’s a non-stick version (I use pan spray on the smooth side of the plate, but you can use the waffle side too). Set the slabs of tofu in there and close the waffle iron up. Mine takes about 15 minutes to create a nice golden-brown crust on both sides. Watch it, opening it up periodically to see if it’s enjoying its sojourn.

Steam the Veggies:

1. Meanwhile, place the florets and string beans in your steamer over boiling water and get your rice or noodles cooking.

It’s also time to get the sauce going. You’ll also want to get your rice or noodles going at this time too.

Make the Sauce:

1. In a small saucepan, whisk together the apricot preserves, miso, vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic and ginger powders. Once it’s well combined, toss in the apricot pieces.
2. Cook over a gentle heat until it’s thickened and reduced a little bit.
3. Set aside.

Fry the Tofu:

1. In a tiny bowl, combine the flax and water and set aside to become a gooey mess.
2. In a bowl large enough to hold the tofu, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. By the time you’ve got that stirred up, the flax should be gloppy, so add that in too.
3. Stir it together. If it’s too thick (which is likely), add a little more water until it’s about the consistency of pancake batter.
4. Cut the ironed tofu into 1-inch cubes. Some of it will crumble. That’s okay.
5. Plop the tofu into the batter and roll it gently around until it’s nicely coated.
6. In a skillet, heat about ¼-inch of oil (I use canola oil, but you use whatever you like) until it shimmers.
7. Drop the tofu cubes into the oil one at a time. Give them some space or they will stick to one another. 
8. When the bottoms are golden, flip them over. You might need to do four sides or six, depending on how deep and hot your oil is. Mostly, the tofu is cooked, so you’re just getting a crispy batter coating to be golden.

Assemble the Meal:

1. Make an artful array of the rice or noodles.
2. Add the veggies to the top and drizzle some of the glaze over them.
3. Set the tofu to one side or right in the middle of your steamed veggies and drizzle the rest of the glaze over that. You might roll the little fried darlings around in the sauce to get a more even coating, but it will make them slightly soggy. So at your own risk…

Devour with the joyous hum of a thousand wasps. 

Chocolate Tofu Cake with Peanut Butter Drizzle for One

This cake is moist, VERY chocolatey, and has just the right amount of sweetness to make any dessert-monger happy without making your dentist nervous. You might want a more traditional frosting—I liked the lumpy bumpy glaze-style frosting because I’m not very good at frosting cakes, and this way, it could be the glaze’s fault.

For a Single-Layer Cake:

7 TBLSP all-purpose flour

6 TBLSP granulated sugar

3 TBLSP cocoa powder

1/3 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

¼ block silken tofu (about 4 ounces)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 TBLSP water

For the Drizzle:

1 TBLSP peanut butter

1 TBLSP non-dairy milk (I like almond, but any will do)

6 TBLSP confectioner’s sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line the bottom of a 5-inch cake pan (I use a single-serving casserole pan or a mini-loaf pan) with parchment paper and mist lightly with cooking spray. Don’t forget the sides!

Make the Cake:

1. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 
2. Blend the tofu into the flour mixture with a fork, crumbling it up. The batter will be wet but very thick.
3. Add in the vanilla and water. You might use more or less water, depending on how batter-like the mixture is. Dispense the batter into the prepared pan.
4. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

Cool the cake in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Make the Drizzle:

1. Put the peanut butter into a microwave-safe bowl and nuke it for 30 seconds. (You can heat it on the stove just as well.)
2. Blend in the milk until the mixture is fairly smooth (if you’re using chunky-style peanut butter, you just have to be able to tell which lumps are peanuts and which need to be addressed.)
3. Add in the powdered sugar, half at a time, until it reaches a loose glaze consistency. You can make it thicker with more peanut butter and thinner with more milk, depending on whether you like it to be more like frosting or more like glaze.

Assemble the Darling:

1. Plate the precious cake and drizzle the peanut butter goodness over the top. Be as tidy or as neat as you like. I melted a few chocolate chips in the microwave, sloshed in a tiny bit of almond milk, and made a happy little hat with peanuts for my two-layer cake. Yummm.

Variations: 

• Make a layer cake. Double the batter (as described below) and split it into two pans. Bake for a little longer and level off the tops of the cakes when they’re properly cooled. Make the much larger amount of Drizzle (as described below) and slather it on the top of one cake. Perch the other one on top and slather or drizzle on top of that.

For a Two-Layer Cake:

¾ cup plus 2 TBLSP all-purpose flour

¾ cup granulated sugar

6 TBLSP cocoa powder

¾ teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

Pinch salt

½ block silken tofu (about 7 ounces)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup water

For a Two-Layer Drizzle:

3-5 TBLSP peanut  butter

2-3 TBLSP non-dairy milk

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

Follow the directions as written, although you’ll want to adjust the cooking time by a few minutes because the cakes are larger.

Cherry Frozen Mousse for One

It’s summertime, and the cherries are everywhere. I love them, and I may have bought too many. Here’s a good treat for when your cherries are starting to fade but are still flavorful and lovely. Oh, and if you can’t wait for it to freeze, it’s still wonderful!

4 ounces (about 1/4 package) silken tofu

¾ cup pitted and frozen cherries

½ teaspoon maple syrup, agave nectar, or confectioner’s sugar (regular sugar will make it grainy)

1.  Chop the cherries a bit, to make the work of the food processor a little lighter.
2. Place all the ingredients into a food processor or blender and whirl until it’s well combined and creamy.
3. Place into a freezer-happy vessel and let it freeze for ½ an hour to 1 hour.

Enjoy topped with fresh fruit and a sprig of mint! Or maybe some chocolate chunks or chocolate sauce.

Note: This recipe makes about ¾ cup, about half-again what’s shown in these photos.

Variations:

This would be great with blueberries instead of cherries, or try blackberries, strawberries, or even plums, peaches, or nectarines! 

Tropical Sushi for One

One day, it was too hot to cook, and my fridge was nearly bare of things to eat cold or raw. What to do, what to do? Oh, of course! Sushi! It involves a little cooking to make the rice, but then you can get out of the kitchen until everything has cooled down.

½ cup sushi rice (small grain, white rice)

1 cup of water

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/8 cup rice vinegar

Nori sheets for wrapping makis

1 banana, cut in half width-wise and then each half sliced into three narrow strips

Vegan cream cheese

3-6 slabs of baked teriyaki tofu (store-bought or use the recipe from Chinese Kickin’ Salad)

1 TBLSP macadamia nuts or peanuts

1. Cook the rice in the water. Watch it, because small amounts of rice like this will suddenly be cooked and burning! Put the cooked rice into a medium-sized bowl.
2. Combine the vinegar and sugar in a small bowl. Pour the vinegar solution over the cooked rice, smooshing the vinegar into the rice with the paddle in a sweeping motion. Make wide Zs over and over in the rice, occasionally bringing the bottom rice up to the top until it’s thoroughly combined and the vinegar is absorbed.
3. Wait until the rice is COMPLETELY COOLED. 

Tra-la-la

1. Place a sheet of nori squarely on a sushi-rolling mat covered with plastic wrap. Make a little line of rice along the bottom of the nori sheet, about 1-inch wide by ¼-inch high. There can be a little gap at the bottom edge.
2. Onto that, pile the banana along the length of the rice pile, then little blobs of cream cheese, then the tofu, and then sprinkle on the nuts.
3. Add another thin layer of rice, moisten the other edge of the nori with a bit of smooshed rice, and roll the little darling up, using the sushi mat.
4. Repeat with the remaining ingredients. There will be two delicious rolls.
5. Cover the rolls with plastic wrap (you can take the stuff off of your mat and use that, if you’re tidy about it). Just lay the rolls on the wrap and then bring the rest of the wrap around to cover them. They don’t have to be tightly wrapped, just covered, top and bottom. Using a very sharp knife that has been dipped into cold water, slice the rolls in half width-wise, and then cut each of those halves twice more until you have eight coin-shaped slices from each roll.
6. Serve with wasabi and soy sauce or tamari.

Yummy!  

Sweet Potato and Cabbage Scramble for One

This quick stir-fry takes advantage of things you probably have in your refrigerator right now. It’s earthy, it’s filling, it’s quick, and it’s oh, so yummy!

½ large sweet potato, cut into ½-inch cubes

Slosh of olive oil

¼ cup large dice green cabbage

2 slices yellow onion, diced

2 mushrooms, halved and sliced thinly

1 clove garlic, diced small

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

Slosh tamari or soy sauce

1 teaspoon nutritional yeast

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

¼ cup cubed baked tofu

1. Stir-fry the sweet potato in the oil for about 5 minutes, until it starts to soften.
2. Add in the cabbage and continue stir-frying for another 5 minutes until the cabbage is a bit wilted and the sweet potato is nearly soft.
3. Add in the onion and mushrooms, and keep right on stir-frying until the onions are a bit transparent.
4. Now, toss in the garlic, rosemary, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and pepper and keep right on stir-frying until the garlic disappears a bit.
5. Add in the tofu, and fry until the tofu is warmed through.

 Serve over toast for breakfast, on its own for lunch, or over rice for dinner. 

Scrambled Tofu for One

There are many variations on this theme, and here is a nice simple one. It’s quick, it’s nutritious, it’s filling, and it’s delicious. Oh, and a very solid protein content, too!

1/2 pound firm tofu (a little more than half a package)

1 TBLSP nutritional yeast flakes

1/8 teaspoon turmeric

Pinch of salt

Several grinds of black pepper

1 TBLSP chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 mushrooms, sliced

1 green onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

Soy sauce or tamari (optional)

1. Drain the tofu. Put it into a small bowl and mash it with a fork. You want smallish chunks. You could also dice it up, but I like the texture of the fork-mashing better.
2. Stir in the yeast, turmeric, salt, pepper, and parsley
3. Heat the oil in a small frying pan. Add the mushrooms, onion, and garlic, and sauté until they’re soft and a little brown around the edges.
4. Add the tofu, stir and cook for 2-3 minutes, just to heat it through. Slosh with a little soy sauce or tamari, if you like.  

Makes about 2 cups.