VeganMoFo: OBR Week – FatFree Vegan Kitchen

FatFree Vegan Kitchen is one of the blogs I’ve been reading the longest, practically since I first went vegan way back when.  Susan cooks without any added oil, although some of her recipes do include fats such as nuts and avocados.  Completely oil-free cooking is somewhat foreign to me, but I do love a low-fat recipe made using whole ingredients.  In addition to posting her own recipes, Susan maintains a database of oil-free vegan recipes submitted by others.

I chose two recipes from the blog which I thought would go well together, Green Curry Tofu Cakes and Bean Sprouts and Broccoli Slaw Salad with Coconut-Ginger Dressing.

You start the tofu cakes by soaking arame and chia seeds, which give a seafood-ish flavor and bind the cakes, respectively.  Then you mix together tofu, nutritional yeast, tamari, green curry paste and quinoa flakes or quick oats and form ‘em into patties.  My tofu was extra-extra-firm and I actually had to add a little more liquid to get the mixture to blend, but even then it was very easy to handle.  There is an option to bread the patties which would have been good, but I skipped it both to save on calories and avoid an extra step.  As suggested, I served the cakes with horseradish-spiked ketchup, which was a great idea.  The ketchup actually overpowered the mildly flavored cakes a bit; I could’ve used more green curry flavor and would add even more next time.

The absolute stand out of this meal was the coconut-ginger salad dressing.  If my face fit in the blender I would have licked it clean.  The balance of toasted coconut, ginger, sweet, salty and sour from tamarind concentrate was perfect.  The salad itself was very simple.  I used shredded cabbage in place of the broccoli slaw just because I had a whole head in the fridge.

If you haven’t checked out FatFree Vegan Kitchen’s recipes yet, take a look!  Susan really knows what she’s doing with flavors, and she makes oil-free cooking delicious.