Friends, I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of apologizing to you all lately. We had a vacation and I was away. Then work got busy and I was away. And then I was just away because I was away. That last part was primarily due to a bit of a family challenge that we’ve been facing down over the past couple of weeks. I’d prefer to not delve too deeply into it at the moment – this is a food blog, after all, not my personal Dear Diary – but I did want to let you know it was lingering out there. And I’ll loop y’all in just as soon as I’m able. Promise.
And before we pivot back to the business of the day – tonight’s dinner! – I admit I have reread the previous paragraph and giggled at my use of “family challenge,” which in my mind evokes either a battle on “Family Feud” or some sort of jousting match, a la “American Gladiators.” ;) But let the record show that neither of those is the case, and that rather this is a challenging facing the family, not relatives squaring off against one another. Although that would be humorous!
ANYWAY. On to the food.
Tonight, I pulled a page from one of my very favorite cookbooks, Robin Robertson’s One-Dish Vegan, and whipped up the Thai Peanut Bowl with some brown rice on the side. (I recognize that the addition of the rice made this a two-dish meal, not one, but who cares?) And as with everything we’ve tried from this cookbook, we adored it.
I won’t delve into the entire recipe here, because Ms. Robertson has a book to sell after all, but I will just say that what makes this dish is the peanut sauce. And that peanut sauce has some mighty interesting ingredients, not the least of which is: Ketchup! KETCHUP, y’all. Now, granted, not a lot, but enough to flavor the sauce (in an incredibly non-ketchupy way). That sauce made the dish – though the tofu, asparagus, scallions, and spices certainly helped.
I am sorry to report that we have none leftover for tomorrow’s lunch – LeeLee and I each went back for heaping seconds, and LeeLee even went back for thirds. The pan was decimated after this assault, but we didn’t care. We would do it all again in a second. (Or third.)
:)