Tofu Thatched Pie

Hands up who loves tofu? Me, me, me!

I love it, in fact I will never tire of tofu! Its so versatile, I use it to make both savoury and sweet treats; mousse, cake frostings, cakes, oat bars, and for savoury everything from stir-fries, crumbled to add texture or just grilled. Check out my recipe page for more tofu recipes and I've even added a tofu board to my pinterest if you're looking for tofu inspiration.

I fancied a comforting dish for dinner tonight, so before I went to work I took out a block of tofu from my freezer, knowing that when I got home it would have defrosted and I could magic the block into a comforting dish for dinner.

When I got home I was in a real need for something comforting to eat after the day I'd had! I'm thankful that cooking after a long day at work is relaxing for me, it's a great stress buster too! You should see me stirring and chopping! Hee hee hee :o)

If you are a regular reader you will know that I love the texture of frozen and defrosted tofu, it almost looks sponge like and it crumbles fantastically after the water has been squeezed out, another stress busting action! :o)

What's better than a mash potato topped pie for comfort food? This is my take on a cottage pie without harming any cows. I call it tofu thatched pie due to the fact that the bottom layer of the pie is tofu based and the top layer of mash potato is ridged, well that's my reasoning and I'm sticking to it.

Ingredients  

500g Potato, diced
Splash of Almond milk
Knob of Vitalite
Salt & pepper
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1 Onion
2 Celery sticks
1 Red pepper,
1 Parsnip
1 Carrot
50g Kale
1 Tbsp Soy sauce100g Mushrooms, diced
1 Block of frozen & defrosted tofu, crumbled
1 Tsp Vegan Worcestershire sauce
2 Tsp Mushroom ketchup
1 Tsp Dried thyme
1 Tsp Garlic powder
½ Tsp Dried cumin
3 Tsp Vegan gravy granules
250ml Vegetable stock

Method
First boil your potatoes until cooked, drain and leave to steam in the pan to remove excess moisture. Add a splash of almond milk and a knob of vitalite, salt and pepper to taste and mash. Put to one side why you make the pie filling.

While the potatoes are cooking, add the Worcestershire sauce and mushroom ketchup to a bowl and stir in the thyme, cumin and garlic powder. Add the crumbled tofu and mix so the tofu soaks up the liquid and is evenly distributed. Set to one side to marinate.

If you have a food processor, use it for speed unless you are extremely fast at chopping. A food processor makes light of all that chopping. Add the onion and celery to the food processor and pulse until finely chopped.

Add to a pan with olive oil and sauté for 5 minutes, whilst this is cooking use the food processor to chop the red pepper, carrot and parsnip. Add to the onion mixture and sauté for another 5 minutes.

Add the kale to the food processor and pulse until chopped. Note: I removed all the thick stems before I weighed the kale. Add the kale to the pan with the soy sauce and give everything good stir, if the vegetables are sticking add a splash of water too.

Add the mushrooms, and stir through and sauté for another 2 minutes.

Transfer the marinated tofu to the pan and stir to combine. Next add the gravy granules to the mixture and stir to combine thoroughly. Pour in the vegetable stock and stir through. Simmer for 5-10 minutes or until you have a loose mixture, but not too runny.

Spray an oven proof dish lightly with oil and add the tofu mixture. Top with the mashed potato and using a fork draw ridges in the potato topping.

Bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes or until the mash potato has browned.

Serve with vegetables and onion gravy.

Jasmine x

Runner Bean Pie

Runner Bean Pie & Vegan Mofo Day 4

Firstly, apologies for the photographs, they really don't do this dish justice! It really was delicious, more so than it looks. Put it another way even though I've now got a freezer, I'm not freezing any as I'm going to take some to work tomorrow for lunch and save the rest for the weekend! I actually went back for seconds too!

My runner bean plants aren't thriving as they have done for the past few years but I think perhaps my seeds are a little too old. Four years ago I had an amazing harvest, I mean I was picking handfuls every morning, I was giving them away (no freezer in those days)! No beans were "stringy" and the taste was out of this world. I would literally eat bowls full of 'just cooked' beans with a splash of vinegar for lunch and dinner! The beans were that good that I decided to let some beans get really big and dry on the plant, once the harvest season was over. Once the beans had dried I removed the bean from the pod and stored in jam jars in a dark cupboard in my shed. The next season I used these beans to grow my next crop. I've been doing this ever since. Last year I did have an amazing crop but I did notice that if a bean was left on the plant for just one day more than I would have liked it did start to become a little stringy. AND there is nothing worse than finding a stringy bean on your plate! Trust me, it puts me right off!

This was my first harvest of the year and I must admit I did have to throw away a couple of beans. When I say throw away I mean on my compost, nothing gets wasted here! So next year I think I will treat myself to some new beans to sow. Unless anyone out there want to do a seed swap? Get in touch if you do!

OK So on to the recipe.


Ingredients
335g Runner beans, top & tailed weight (a good handful)
750g potatoes, peeled
350ml Almond milk (non sweetened)
1½ Tbsp Vitalite

250ml Water
75g Cashews
2 Tsp Porcini powder
4 Tbsp Nutritional yeast
1 Mushroom stock cube (I used Kallo organic)

Method

Cook the potatoes in boiling water until s knife pierces them easily. Drain and leave in the pan to steam dry for about 5 minutes. This removes the excess moisture.

Mash the potatoes with 100ml of the almond milk and 1 Tbsp of the Vitalite until creamy and lump free.

While the potatoes are cooking place the prepared runner beans in a pan of boiling water and bring back to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes, or until they are al dente, you don't want to cook them too much, they taste better with a little bight in my opinion. Drain and transfer to an oven proof dish.

Saute the mushrooms in the remaining ½ Tbsp of Vitalite for 5 minutes and transfer to the oven dish with the beans.

Add the remaining 250ml of almond milk to a blender along with the last 5 ingredients and blitz until you have a sauce like consistency. Don't worry if you think the sauce is too thin it will thicken up as it heats up. Pour the sauce over the runner beans and mushrooms and top with the mas potato.

Bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling and the potatoes are golden brown.

Now, don't judge me here, but I ate mine with baked beans! I don't know what it is but I love creamy sauces and baked beans together! If you don't agree with my taste buds then serve with extra vegetables.