Every Saturday Mike and I sit down and make a shopping list. I usually plan the meals in advance but find it easier to have him read the ingredients out as I try and work out what I have in the pantry and write the list. This usually leads to him flicking through the pages of the books and demanding 100’s of recipes at once; “Can you make these?”, “Look at these, don’t they look good”, “Mushrooms, you know how much I love mushrooms!”, “I haven’t had biscuits in so long, when are you going to make me biscuits?”. Let’s just say it can take a while and his meal choices for a week night meal aren’t always practical. When we sat down this week to write out the shopping list, Mike found this recipe on the way to another recipe and said “Oooo pineapple; I like pineapple, we should try this!”.
This recipe was pretty good. I’m not a huge fan of pineapple and don’t really like it in meals (me and sweet and sour are not BFF’s), but it went really well with the baked tofu and marinade. I didn’t have any old bay seasoning, and although I could have made some, I decided to use Creole Seasoning, as the recipe didn’t use much. The Creole Seasoning worked well but it probably would have been better with Old Bay Seasoning. I haven’t tried Old Bay Seasoning, so it’s hard for me to say. I also served it with Caribbean Coconut Rice from Vegetarian times. The recipe suggested serving it with just plain brown rice, which I though was a little boring – who doesn’t put coconut and pineapple together? Madness!
The biggest problem with this recipe is it does use a lot of dishes. First you baked the tofu in the marinade and then you put the tofu on a baking sheet and bake for longer. You then make a sauce, rice and sear the pineapple and cook the spinach. In total you use about 5 cooking pots/dishes to make one meal. Not a problem on the weekend when you have some one to help you clean but a little overwhelming when you’re on your own on a week night. I also have a tiny kitchen and very limited bench space (my kitchen is smaller than a display model at IKEA) so 5 dishes is a bit of a nightmare (unless you’re cleaning as you go, which isn’t possible in this recipe as the timeframes between each step are short).
The best thing about this dish? Nutty Spinach! I certainly haven’t been over using this side dish. All you do is wilt the spinach and chuck in some chopped nuts, my favourite is almonds. It’s so easy and tastes great. I am super amazed by it.
This was a nice dish but I’m not sure it was worth all the effort. Next time I think I’ll forget about making the sauce and just let the tofu cook in the marinade for the whole 40 minutes. I definitely think we will make it again when Mike gets a pineapple craving. 
 | Vegan Yum Yum: Decadent (But Doable) Animal-Free Recipes for Entertaining and Everyday By Lauren Ulm Recipe can be found here. |