Green Options

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When we had company unexpectedly this week, I had to think quickly of a dish to serve. Earlier that day, I made some of the raw beet salad that I wrote about last month. I had about two cups of leftover shredded beets + carrots. So I decided to pickle them in a combination of rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and honey for the rest of the day.

As a quick snack for my pop-over friends, I made a modified Bahn Mi sandwich (you know, those incredibly complex Vietnamese sandwiches of liver pate, chicken and pork pieces, and pickled veggies between crusty slices of baguette).

To take the place of the liver pate, I used homemade hummus. The beat salad stood in for the usual daikon-and-carrot mixture. Instead of meat, I used some extra-firm, marinated tofu (a.k.a. the best tofu ever). The crusty baguette, veggies and tofu are all locally grown/made and picked up at the farmer’s market. Recipe after the jump:

I love finding new recipes and trying out new things. But one of the problems with following a recipe to the letter is that you can end up with a lot of leftover veggies, grains, etc. After my recent Mac and Cheese taste test, for example, I found myself with half a potato, half a carrot, and a big chunk of of onion leftover. I also had a whole lot of fresh spinach burning a hole in my vegetable crisper.

My favorite way to use up just about any leftover veggies is to scramble them. You could use eggs of course, but tofu scrambles are a cholesterol-free approach that even soy-substitute-skeptics can enjoy. I find that half a block of tofu makes about one serving.