Forest of Oranges

Inspired by the good eatin' over at YouWho?, I thought I would share this latest culinary adventure. First, a disclaimer: My wife is a vegetarian*, and I am mostly a vegetarian. Hence, if I post a recipe here it is most likely going to be vegetarian. If you think that recipes with tofu, seitan, tempeh, etc. are gross then you have not ever had these foods properly prepared. Try again. :-)

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here's a rather fancy dish that I threw together using some Black Truffle and Olive Tepenade that I picked up over at Etoneca Italiana. I call it "Forest of Oranges", because that is what it looks like, and in a very zen way it represents the Earth, Wind and Trees. Oh crap, I'm starting to sound like some vegan granola crunchy freak-bag. I'll have to step on some small helpless animal later, to balance out my karma. Anyway, the components of the meal were:

1) Marinated Baked Tofu
2) Linguini with oil, mushroom and the truffle tepanade
3) Spears of baby broccoli with olive oil and garlic
4) Roasted kumquats
5) Fresh spinach & mozzarella

Use fresh linguini, and toss with olive oil and a small amount of the tepenade (it goes a long way, as both olives and truffles are pungent). Add some diced fresh mushrooms, and use this as the "sky". Heat an iron roasting pan or skillet to about 500 degrees. Make sure that the pan is as hot as the oven! Take the broccoli and toss it very lightly with some olive oil, garlic, the kumquats, and maybe some diced onion and spinach if you've got it handy. Toss the mixture into the red-hot pan and put it back in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes. Add some fresh italian herbs (I used fresh basil**) near the end. About a minute before the veggies are done, throw the baked tofu on top of them all just to heat them up. This is easy because you can buy the tofu pre-baked in most asian markets, and there's actually a good brand that they carry at Shop & Save. Placing this next to a small pile of fresh spinach, this makes up the Earth, the Trees and the "oranges", making the dinner look like a little bonsai arrangement on your plate.

Of course, for me no dinner is complete with some sort of cheese. For this I chose a small amount of fresh mozzarella.

Voila!

* No, she doesn't eat chicken, and she doesn't eat fish. If she ever found a chicken or a fish that was made out of vegetables, she might try it. I wanted to point this out because everyone always asks, even though these are really stupid questions when you think about it. It like saying to an alcoholic, "but you drink wine right? What about desert wines?"

** Grow your basil during the summer. Grow lots of it. Take all of the extra, strip the leaves from the plants, wash them and put them whole in freezer bags and freeze them. When you need them during the winter, take the frozen leaves and crumble them right into whatever your cooking. It works, and it tastes great.