Most days when I don’t have much time to sit and eat an elaborate meal, I throw things in a bowl and eat up anything combined with anything. This book by Becky Striepe takes those daily meals to a whole new level by providing simple options for the layers in the bowls and combinations that are tried and tested and loved.
Bowls are quick and easy. Becky’s bowl basics are simple, add a layer of grains, potatoes, greens or pasta, top with veggies, then protein and some awesome sauces or dressings. With the recipes for each of the bowl elements in the book, there are endless possibilities to come up with your own combinations!
The book has chapters on Breakfast and Brunch Bowls, Lunches and suppers, Soups and Stews, Sauces and Layers basics.
I made this Peanut butter Tofu Bowl with the perfect mashed potatoes (and they definitely are perfect, noochy, peppery and perfect!), greens and drizzled up with more peanut butter sauce. That sauce is so good that I threw in some cauliflower in it and baked those up as well (baked for 25 minutes at 425 degrees F). Clearly most of the cauliflower did not make it to the pictures. What can I say, we all know by now how much Cauliflower we eat in this house. I should just change the tagline of the blog to Eating Cauliflower till we photosynthesize 😉
Back to the Bowls book. Becky has worked on the book and published it by herself! Which I can tell you is a big feat. so many steps go into writing and publishing a book! Support her by getting yourself a copy here!
Becky is also giving away the book to 2 readers of the blog. One print copy within US and One digital copy for International readers, anywhere in the world! Please enter the Giveaway at the end of the post.
Yumm.. This Peanut Butter Tofu Bowl!
Peanut Butter Tofu Bowl
Ingredients
- 1 block extra firm tofu
- 1 batch Peanut Butter Sauce see below
- 1 batch Perfect Mashed Potatoes see below
- Greens
- salt and pepper
Peanut Butter Sauce
- 2 inch piece of fresh ginger coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 cup (129 g) creamy peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- juice of 1/2 a fresh lemon
- 1-2 teaspoons (1 teaspoons) Sriracha sauce to taste
- 2-6 tablespoons (2 tablespoons) of water
Perfectly Mashed Potatoes
- 2 large red or white potatoes - about the size of a tennis ball - cut into 2” pieces. The thin skin is key since we are not peeling them.
- 1/4 or more cup (59.15 ml) soy or almond milk plus extra, as needed
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/4 cup (11 g) nutritional yeast flakes
- salt and pepper to taste
- green onions chopped (optional)
Instructions
Method
Make the Peanut Butter Sauce
- Put the ginger, garlic, peanut butter, soy sauce, lemon juice, and Sriracha into your blender or food processor. Blend until smooth, adding water by the tablespoon as needed to get things moving.
Make the Mashed Potatoes
- 1. Put your potatoes into a large pot, adding enough water to cover them completely. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10-15 minuntes, until they’re fork-tender. Transfer to a colander to drain.
- 2. In a medium-sized bowl, mash up your potato a little bit, then add the soy milk and olive oil. It’s going to look way too liquidy at this point, but don’t panic! Just keep mashing. I try to mash down anything that’s larger than a pea in size, but if you like your mashed potatoes ultra smooth you can mash even more or even get in there with an immersion blender.
- 3. Once the potatoes are the consistency you like, fold in the nutritional yeast. Stir well to completely combine, then add a little extra soy milk – one tablespoon at a time – if things look a little bit dry. Every potato is different, so the exact amount of soy milk is going to vary.
- 4. Season with salt and pepper, top with the green onions.
Make the bowl
- 1. Preheat the oven to 350F / 180ºc
- 2. Slice your block of tofu into 8 cutlets, and arrange them in a greased 9×12” glass baking pan.
- 3. Make your Peanut Butter Sauce and pour it over the tofu, making sure each cutlet gets a nice coating, and bake for 30 minutes.
- 4. While the tofu bakes, make your Perfect Mashed Potatoes.
- 5. Divide the greens and potatoes between your four bowls, and dish up two cooked cutlets on top.
Notes
Nutrition
jennifer
I made this bowl, and I like this recipe, but I wonder if the amount of potatoes is supposed to be 2 lbs. of potatoes, not just 2 potatoes. That is a lot of liquid and nutritional yeast for just 2 potatoes. It makes them very thin.
Vegan Richa Support
thanks Jennifer,,, 2 large potatoes works perfect for a bowl – 2 lbs would be good for a whole batch of mashed potatoes, you could always adjust the amts to your preference,
Becky
Agreed with the poster above! I used two large potatoes and the result was a liquidy mess. I added another larger potato and it was still far too runny! Unfortunately, the potato portion of this recipe was not good for us.
Richa
Oh no. I just checked the recipe. It seems like it might have gotten edited in one of the recent widget updates seem we’ve been updating to new widget in the past 2 years. That indeed is too much milk. I updated the recipe for lesser amount