Peri Perilous Vegetarian Medley

Huzzah! The Perils have passed! I fear celebrating too quickly, but two nights sans torturous headaches can expectedly be interpreted as a farewell to the clusters. The relief that bears down on me and more importantly my husband is a weight of the most cloud-like proportions–fluffy and comforting. So perhaps we can return to the normalcy of not fearing every little thing he eats. Nevertheless, I did happen to concoct a few lovely meals that were both quick and tasty, and naturally I sit here now to share them.

This particular recipe came about because the husband was a tad wary of eating meats all week, for better or for worse, so I embarked on a LOT of tofu dishes. This one also yields a healthy dose of the bell pepper (which mentioned previously supposedly aids in the relief of CHs). I personally liked this one because it was bright and cheerful, and I was able to get the boy eating more green stuff (a trait he evidently carried from the quintessential definition of childhood: an irrational fear of the green vegetable). One day he will like broccoli too, that’s my ultimate goal. Don’t say wishful thinking, I will just shut my ears and sing inanities to drown you out (I can have childish tendencies too).

The best part of this dish however comes from the source of the flavor: NANDOS! Yes on one of my last treks to one of the tastiest restaurants around, I bought a few of their sauces: extra hot and garlic. Whee! Eventually I’m going to use it on chicken itself and let my tastebuds swoon in ecstasy. But I digress…

Ingredients

2 garlic cloves sliced
1 cup chopped green beans
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped small
1 package extra firm tofu, drained
3 tsp Nando’s Garlic Peri-Peri Sauce
Crushed red peppers
Salt
Turmeric
Red chili pepper
coriander/cumin ground spices

Simple is as simple does. The steps to follow are basic and fly by, the main usage of time falls under a little prep work with slice-and-dicing, and the usual sautéing patience. In a bowl toss your tofu with some sprinklings of salt, tiny dash of turmeric, red pepper, and 1 to 1.5 tsp of the garlic sauce. I just like to make sure there’s a base of flavor already infused in the tofu before it gets cooked. Set aside to let the magic happen.

Separately, in a large skillet or frying pan, warm 2-3 tbsp of olive oil to medium heat and add the bell pepper and garlic. In a small pot, boil some water and cook the green beans until they’ve softened and cooked a bit (their color will brighten up considerably), roughly 5 minutes. Drain and by this time you can add it to the frying pan with the peppers.Cook, cook, cook until everything you’ve sweat out those peppers, adding some dash of salt, ground coriander and cumin (roughly 1 1/2 tsp) and crushed red pepper to the mix. At this point, toss in the tofu, making sure to give them space to fry up a little. Add additional Peri Peri sauce and adjust your spices as needed (some chili powder if you like for example).