Mom's Tofu Reubens

Some people say there's nothing like their mom's meatloaf. Well, those people weren't raised by a pack of tofu-gobbling hippies; for Phoebe, there's nothing like her mom's tofu Reubens.

This recipe will make enough tofu for six sandwiches; we only made sandwiches for the two of us, but the leftover tofu will find a home in kale salads and over rice later this week.

For the Tofu:
1 pound extra-firm tofu
1/3 cup olive oil
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
2 cloves garlic
salt
pepper

First, press the water out of the tofu: lay your tofu block on a plate, put another plate on top of it, and weight down with a can of beans. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes, during which time the weight will press out the extra water, leaving your tofu thirsty for some marinade!

Slice the tofu width-wise into 12 rectangular slabs, 1/4 inch thick, and arrange in a 9 x 13 inch broiler-safe casserole dish. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, mustard, garlic, salt and pepper and pour over the tofu, shaking the dish around so both sides of the tofu get coated. Marinate for at least 15 minutes (longer if you have time). Broil for about 10 minutes on each side.


For the Sandwich:
Rye Bread (or whatever hippie sprouted rice loaf you're into)
Butter (or whatever vegan substitute you're into)
Swiss Cheese
Thousand Island Dressing (we use Annie's) or just mustard
Sauerkraut (warm it up if you prefer!)

Surely you know how to make grilled cheese sandwiches? Butter two pieces of bread. Place one, butter side down, on a frying pan over medium-low heat, then add a few slices of cheese and top it off with the second slice of bread, butter side up. Fry until each side is golden brown and the cheese has melted.

Open up the grilled cheese and add a little thousand island, a couple slabs of tofu and a big pile of saurkraut. Delicious!

Mango Pickle

Hannah's gone away for a week in New Orleans... without me. Before settling down in front of the television to mope, I decided to take advantage of her absence to enjoy two of my favorite forbidden foods: mangoes and pickles. She's allergic to mangoes, so I keep them out of the house when she's around. And for reasons I will never understand, the one food she just will not eat is an Indian-style pickle. Why, Hannah? They're so mouth-watering and spicy.

Some pickle recipes take days, weeks or months to fully mature. This one is quick and easy, leaving you more time to contemplate your dreary, solitary existence.

Ingredients
1 mango
1-3 teaspoons cayenne pepper (as much as you can stand)
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon mustard oil (if you can't get any, use canola oil)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
pinch of asafoetida
10 curry leaves (optional)

Peel the mango and cut it into small pieces, discarding the pit. Mix the mango chunks, cayenne pepper, salt and fenugreek powder together in a glass jar. Heat the canola and mustard oil in a small pan. When hot, add the mustard seeds, turmeric, curry leaves and asafoetida. Once the mustard seeds pop, pour the mixture over the mango chunks and stir gently. Allow the pickle to mellow for at least an hour, then consume with rice and curry, at a table set for one. I'm not crying, I swear, this pickle is just really spicy.

Stone Fruit Chutney

We made this to use the last fruits of our loquat tree, but we based it on a Madhur Jaffrey recipe for peach chutney (which was based on a recipe for green mango chutney!), so this basic concept will work with apricots, nectarines or other stone fruits. Chutney is a great showcase for fruit that may have been bruised on the way back from the farmer's market, and will be delicious on whatever protein you choose to throw on your grill.

This is based on the recipe for Delhi-Style Peach Chutney in Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian; we skipped the overnight soaking of fenugreek seeds and subbed honey for the sugar.

2 lbs peaches, nectarines, apricots or loquats
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons peanut oil
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
2-inch piece of fresh ginger, finely minced (use a microplane if you have one)
2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
5 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne

Pit and roughly chop fruit and toss with lemon juice. Heat oil in a medium-sized saucepan and add cumin and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds pop, add fennel seeds, stir once, and add ginger and fry for a minute. Add water, fruit, honey, salt, turmeric and cayenne. Simmer, uncovered, over medium heat for 10-20 minutes, until fruit breaks down and sauce thickens, stirring frequently. (If your fruit is extra-juicy, you might need longer than 20 minutes). Cool and store in a clean glass jar.

Whole Grain Strata with Oregano and Myzithra

Strata is delicious for brunch or dinner, a really filling rustic concept: an egg custard, cubes of bread, and whatever cheeses and vegetables you want. This variation has a Greek flair, with a generous amount of fresh oregano and some crumbles of aged myzithra. Myzithra is a hard, salty Greek cheese; if you can't find it, feel free to use feta instead, or just skip it.

We used Alvarado Street sprouted wheat bread, but if you have something more normal around, go crazy. Also, this would probably work with rice bread for you gluten-free folks; let us know if you try it!

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 an onion, finely chopped
5 slices of bread, cut into 1-inch squares
1 1/2 cups milk (we used rice milk, but you could use whatever you want)
6 large eggs
1/2 cup crumbled myzithra cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh oregano
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Heat butter or olive oil in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add onions and saute 5-7 minutes, until translucent, then add garlic and stir for 2 more minutes. Add bread and continue to stir until evenly coated and just beginning to brown, about 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs and milk. Stir in oregano, pepper and myzithra.

Take skillet off heat, fold in egg mixture and mix until well-combined. Bake for about 15 minutes on middle rack, until strata is puffed up and eggs look set. Cut into wedges and serve.

Kale Pesto

We knocked out a healthy bunch of red Russian kale tonight for dinner simply by substituting kale for basil in pesto. We tossed our kale pesto with thick homemade whole wheat noodles, but any pasta will do. Also, we sprinkled a handful of raisins over each portion, always a delicious combination: sweet raisins are great with kale, and together they pack an iron punch for vegetarians, pregnant ladies and Popeye impersonators.

Again, this is a situation where kale type matters: you want a sweet variety like red Russian, karinata or even those flowering ornamental kales I've only ever seen in regular old supermarkets. The curly red or green kinds are a little too bitter for this type of showcase.

1 bunch (4-5 cups) red Russian kale, stemmed and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
1/4-1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place kale and garlic in a strainer over the sink and pour about 5 cups of boiling water over: this will blanch any bitterness from the kale and mellow the raw garlic. Toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet until they are touched with golden brown. Combine small batches of kale, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse well until you have a smooth paste. Stir your batches together and salt to taste. Toss with hot pasta, spread on crackers or bread, or use to top baked potatoes.

Balsamic Kale Salad with Strawberries and Hard-Boiled Eggs

Here's another kale salad, this one with a balsamic vinaigrette and two classic toppings; the sweet strawberries and the comforting blandness of the hard-boiled egg are a perfect foil for the assertiveness of raw kale. This plus an artichoke made a successful kale-centered dinner, with the added bonus of cramming a full bunch of kale into one meal.

A word about raw kale salads: they really do best with lacinato kale (also known as Tuscan kale, black kale or cavolo nero), which is much less severe and therefore better served raw than other varieties. If you don't believe us, the New York Times actually pays Melissa Clark to say so. So if you think you're ready for raw kale, please be careful not to do this with the curly green kind--it'll make you hate kale, which will make us weep.

You can also use with other fruit, depending on the season--try pears or apples in the winter, peaches and nectarines later in the summer.

1 bunch (ours was about 25 medium-sized leaves) lacinato kale
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mustard
10 strawberries, sliced
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
Freshly grated parmesan cheese (totally optional)

Wash kale and remove stems. Slice into very thin ribbons and place in a large salad bowl. Whisk together the oil, vinegar, mustard and salt and pour over kale, mixing well to coat. Let it marinate for at least an hour (up to a day).

When you're ready to serve, divide kale into individual bowls and top with strawberries, hard-boiled egg and parmesan.

Potato and Kale Casserole

Operation Kale Binge is on track: we have consumed three and a half bunches of kale in three days! Mostly, we've been just having an extra-large portion of Wheeler greens along with whatever else we were planning to eat, but we've also generated some as-yet-unblogged recipes, like this filling, savory dish. It's loosely based on a recipe for "Delicious Winter Casserole" that came with our CSA newsletter a few years ago, but that one was mostly about using up red daikon, which isn't a concern in June, so we've pared it down to just thinly-sliced potatoes, some delicious fat, pepper, kale and parmesan cheese.

We sliced the potatoes extremely thinly on our mandoline, so this cooked up in less than an hour. If you're slicing them on your own and they're a little thicker, just cook for longer after you take the foil off (in our pre-mandoline days, we needed about half an hour covered and half an hour uncovered).


3 large red waxy potatoes, very thinly sliced
4 tablespoons melted salted butter
10 leaves kale (the curly-edged green or purple kinds are good here), washed, stemmed and finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper
5 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl, drizzle melted butter over the potatoes and mix well with your hands, making sure each slice is coated. Grease a large cast-iron skillet and arrange a layer of potatoes on the bottom. Top with kale, black pepper and 1/3 of the parmesan cheese. Repeat until you run out of kale, then top with a final layer of potatoes and a sprinkling of parmesan. Cover skillet with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove foil and bake for another 15-30 minutes, until potatoes are cooked through.