Dark Days and Tofu Challenge: chili

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Like just about everyone else I know, I’m recovering from some sort of plague.  After spending many hours this past week riding the couch I finally managed to cook a little something.  Between my cold and the cold outside, I wanted something filling and comforting.

Mikaela told me last month that freezing tofu will change the texture and make it more meat-like.  I froze one of the blocks of Fresh Tofu I picked up from the Fair Food Farmstand and thawed it.  I thought it would make a nice meat substitute for chili.  Admittedly, I had my doubts - it seemed rubbery as I was tearing it up.

Oh ye of little faith!

The chili turned out to be really great and almost entirely made from local ingredients.  Aside from salt, pepper, and a small can of tomato paste, that is.  I used a pound of pinto beans from Margerum’s (Clark Park Farmer’s Market), a bag full of frozen corn from last year’s CSA, dried parsley from last year’s garden, and a couple jars of plum tomatoes I canned last year.  And, of course, locally made tofu...which, as Mikaela promised, really does have a meaty quality.  In fact, if I didn’t know it was tofu I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

On a day like today, it was an excellent lunch with a heel of sourdough bread from Le Bus.  Yum!