What We Ate While Watching the Bruins Win

Vegan food goes great with anything, including sports. So, recently when we sat down to watch the Bruins play game seven against the Canucks, we decided that we should whip up something different, something a with a little kick to get us going for what was sure to be an exciting game. So, we picked Chimichurri Baked Tofu from Terry Hope Romero’s Viva Vegan. It was certainly a great pairing - a great meal during a great game.

The recipe has some exciting ingredients, such as smoked paprika. While we didn’t have smoked sweet paprika in our spice cabinet we did have smoked paprika. It was a purchase for a specific recipe quite some time ago, so I was excited to pull it out again. I wouldn’t have thought that the taste and smell would be so much different than “regular old” paprika, but it is completely worth the purchase. You can really smell and taste the difference.

Coating the tofu in the oil and soy sauce mixture really gives it some taste right off the bat. I typically try to use less oil than most recipes call for, so instead of using 2 tablespoons oil and 1 tablespoon soy sauce, I did 1.5 of each. Even then, I probably would swap the measurements for each ingredient completely next time. Watching the two ingredients separate after I had mixed them in the pan definitely kept me amused for a few minutes!

We saved just the tiniest bit of the chimichurri sauce for the end, way less than the 1/3 suggested and even that was a bit too much for someone that doesn’t like raw garlic in large amounts. Me? I can eat raw garlic in a sauce any day, but if those eating with you do not prefer so much raw garlic, you may want to cook the sauce separately in the oven (or maybe a small skillet) for a portion of the time that you cook the tofu, or just pour the whole amount on top of the tofu while it cooks if you like it a little crispy.

We paired the tofu with sautéed greens. We got our first CSA vegetables earlier that same day and it was filled with various amazing greens. So, we picked what, from our internet searching, seemed to be the joi choi and yukina savoy (big tot soy) in the bunch and sautéed it with the young garlic (we were informed we should use the whole plant, good information). Now, personally I would have added a few cloves of what I assume to be “mature garlic” to get a stronger garlic flavor, but I was vetoed. Instead, we used a small amount of sesame oil, which was still fantastic.

While the Chimichurri Baked Tofu and sautéed greens probably wouldn’t have been my first thought to pair together if we didn’t get a bag full of greens earlier in the day, it was a pretty good match and they paired well.

In the end, Bruin’s won, 4-0. While I cannot say that my meal was better than watching the Bruins win for the first time during my lifetime, I can say that it was pretty amazing.