tofu and pickled beet sandwiches

A few years ago, I spent a summer in Ann Arbor, on the University of Michigan campus. It was there that I discovered my love of sandwiches. I, uh, also learned a lot of statistics, but that's just not as tasty. Or interesting to blog about. Anyway, I had no idea that I harbored such a love of sandwiches, but when I was in Ann Arbor, it occurred to me that in contrast to the Univ of MI and Univ of MN campus (where I went to college), there really aren't good sandwich places on or near the UCI campus. 

But, there is Gogi, so I guess that might make up for the lack of good sandwiches.

Anyway, sandwiches are awesome, and I usually make them myself these days. Last week, we made tofu and pickled beet sandwiches. 

The recipe is from Bon Appetit and was supposed to be made with eggplant, but ours went bad in the fridge, so we baked up some tofu instead. I've been getting into pickled veggies lately, and they add some nice tang and crunch to sandwiches, and also, well, anything. 

muffuletta, roasted leeks and potatoes

It's the end of the quarter, and you know what gave it away?  It wasn't the stress or fatigue, but rather, our slacker eating habits. Last week, we ate out a few times, which is pretty uncharacteristic.  This week, we were prepared, and we pulled homemade lasagna (made earlier in the quarter) from our freezer and next week, we'll do the same and eat soyrizo, corn, and black bean enchiladas.  

Despite being tired and busy, we did manage to make muffulettas.  I don't know the provenance of muffulettas, but I know the main components are cold cuts, cheese, and a marinated olive salad.  Our version is a vegan version made with roasted eggplant, spinach, and roasted red peppers, in addition to the olive salad.  The recipe is from Veganomican, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who blogs over at Post Punk Kitchen.    

I adore Moskowitz, and I have all of her cookbooks (and she has published many of them).  Many people are skeptical of vegan cooking and baking, but Moskowitz's cookbooks show you that it's easy and super tasty (okay, except for Veganomicon, which is a bit labor intensive).  I have never been disappointed with her recipes.  

The olive salad is addictive, and fortunately, there is a bit leftover, which is perfect for eating with the leftover bread you scoop out to make the gigantic sandwich.  I've been lucky in the past- I've been the one to assemble the sandwich by myself, but this time Drew and I did it together, so I had to share the leftover olive salad with him.  But I shouldn't complain- he did let me have the last bite. 

Drew roasted leeks and potatoes, both of which were amazing.  Usually, leeks aren't considered a side dish (apparently they are in England), but after eating Drew's leeks, I'm baffled as to why not (we had intended to make a leek and potato soup, so that's why we had the leeks).  Drew par-boiled the potatoes first, so they were extra crispy after baking them.  It's a bit high maintenance, but worth it in the end.

tofu reubens, baked beans, macaroni salad

Sometime last year, Drew and I went to a cooking demonstration given by Chef Tanya Petrovna, the mastermind behind Native Foods, a fast-casual, vegan chain. While cooking, Chef Petrovna told us that when she was a child, she was baffled upon learning that a friend hated spinach. But then she went to her friend's house and was served spinach...from a can. No wonder her friend hated spinach! Food from a can or a box is infinitely inferior than fresh, and it is unfortunate that we swear off a food simply because we haven't eaten it in its optimal form. 

I'm guilty of this too. Prior to meeting Drew, there were a few foods I had virtually sworn off because I thought I didn't like them. It turns out that I just didn't particularly care for the canned versions, and two of those foods were showcased in our meal last week: sauerkraut and baked beans.

Let's start with the sauerkraut. I began making sauerkraut in the past year or so because 1) I kept reading about how easy it was to make; 2) I am intrigued with making foods that we normally buy; 3) it sounded like an interesting experiment; and 4) I wanted to know what it was really supposed to taste like. Last spring, I got a new cookbook called The Homemade Pantry, by Alana Chernila, who blogs at Eating From the Ground Up. I was drawn in by her stories and her pictures, and of course, her recipes. She show you, among lots of other things, how to make cheese, yogurt, crackers, bread, granola, twinkies, oreos...and sauerkraut. So I finally gave sauerkraut a whirl, and I'm glad I did. I massaged about 3 pounds of cabbage  (a combination of red and green) with kosher salt to extract its liquid, put it all into a giant glass jar, weighted it down to extract more brine, and let it do its thing in the closet for 4 days (you can ferment it from 3 to 10 days). Homemade sauerkraut is so good and so much better than what you'll find in a can or a jar. 

There's not a whole lot you can do with sauerkraut, but fortunately, we love tofu reubens:

Drew is a fan of baked beans (canned and homemade), but I'm not such a fan of the stuff from a can. We've experimented a bit with different recipes, and one we keep going back to is the one for the Yard House's BBQ Baked Beans, a recipe published in the Los Angeles Times. We double the amount of beans the recipe calls for, as I'm not a fan of "bean juice." 

tofu banh mi

I have a strange fascination with banh mi.  I say "strange" because I really haven't had authentic banh mi.  The only ones I've eaten are the ones at Native Foods and at Lee's sandwiches.  This is embarrassing to admit,  Please don't give me grief, and if you have a recommendation for a place to get good banh mi, please post it in the comments.

Earlier in the week, Drew and I made tofu banh mi, using the recipe from Post Punk Kitchen.    

It was easy to make, and making the pickled veggies earlier in the day really helped.  The pickled veggies were really good, but too salty, even on the sandwich.  I would not hesitate to use this recipe again, but I would cut the salt in half.  Also, I couldn't find star anise in the store last weekend, so I used fennel seed instead.   

Don't be scared off by the tofu; if it's made properly, it can be really good.  (I will note that the recipe calls for scrambled tofu, but we ignored that part.  Basically, the only part of the recipe we used was the part for the pickled veggies.)  Not surprisingly, I think we do a pretty good job, and by "we," I really mean Drew (he is always in charge of the tofu because I'm not good at making marinades without a recipe).  I'm sure there are many ways to make tofu, but there are only two ways that we make it: scrambling it (for breakfast burritos) or baking it.  We first press it for about 30 minutes to expel as much water as possible.  Then Drew makes up some sort of marinade (this time it consisted of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder) and brushes it on the tofu before popping it in the oven.  We never bake the tofu in the marinade; doing so doesn't allow the tofu to firm up and it remains on the mushy side, which we don't care for.  

The sandwich was really good, and the pickled veggies offered a nice crunch to contrast the tofu.  We ate the banh mi with roasted brussel sprouts, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.