General Tsao’s Sauce (from scratch) with Tofu

This is my husband's recipe, he developed it after looking at a ton of General Tsao's sauce recipes online, most bragging about being completely from scratch... and having ingredients like hoisin sauce or something. Yes, this one does use soy sauce and chili oil, those are pre-made.
We used to buy General Tsao's sauce from Trader Joe's (it's very good) but with his corn allergy, we had to come up with our own version. Use lots of broccoli with this one :) 

If you're not familiar with using arrowroot as a corn starch substitute, it's a thickener that works very well with sauces. It's also a lower temperature thickener, so keep your sauce at a lower temperature when you add it. It's easiest to add to a sauce if it's already liquid, and mixes really well in cold water- so add a little cold water to your measured out arrowroot, stir, and then add the liquid to your sauce. Arrowroot also thickens quickly.


Ingredients:

5 Tbsp rice vinegar
6½ Tbsp. rice wine
½ cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
1½ or 2 tsp. chili oil
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
½ cup sugar
3 tsp. minced garlic
1½ tsp. minced ginger
4 or 5 teaspoons arrowroot, for sauce (pre-mixed in a little bit of cool water)

½ cup oil (for frying)
One container of Extra Firm fresh tofu.
1 cup (ish) onions
4 Cups broccoli (approx)

Sauce Instructions: 
Mix Rice Vinegar, Rice Wine, Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil, Chili Oil and Tomato Paste. Add 1/2 cup sugar, then whisk it together.

In a large sauce pan lightly sauté the garlic and ginger in a small amount of oil, then add the mixture and bring to low boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and cook, and add arrowroot while whisking. It should be thick when done. Then remove from heat and set aside.

Stir Fry Instructions: 
Take tofu out of liquid it came in and chop into 1 inch cubes, press these between two towels to take out the moisture and dry them. Heat 1/2 cup oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Then place in the tofu, turn it during cooking so that each side gets browned. When all sides are browned, place the tofu on a paper towel to get rid of excess oil. Sauté the onions, add broccoli and cook until tender. (add water if necessary) Then add the tofu and then the sauce and heat over low for until everything is heated through.

Vegan Spinach Pesto Stuffed Shells

These were *amazing*

Start with homemade tomato sauce w/ vegan Italian sausage:

• 1 package Upton's Naturals Italian Sausage style seitan
• 1/2 cup minced onion
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
• 1 (15 ounce) can canned tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

I saute the seitan with the onions & garlic, browning the seitan a bit. The rest of the ingredients- the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, water, sugar, seasonings, salt, pepper, and parsley (if you have it) go in the crock pot. When the seitan/onions/garlic is done, add that to the crock pot and turn on low for 6-8 hours (while you're at work.)

Corn-free note- I've been using Eden Organics for canned tomatoes and beans because their canned stuff is completely free of citric acid, which may or may not be corn.

OK, so once your sauce is done, make the spinach pesto ricotta filling (adapted from the Veganomicon):

• 1 lb extra firm or firm tofu
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 2-4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
• 1/4 tsp salt
• ground pepper
• 1/2 cup minced basil leaves
• 1/4 cup pinenuts
• 2 T olive oil
• 2-3 cups baby spinach

I used my Cuisinart, and simply blended everything together, putting in the spinach last. Set aside (you can even make ahead of time and refrigerate it.

Cook up some pasta shells- the ones I used were actually brown rice shells, and I used them because the other brands at the store had lots of potential corn ingredients- various vitamin additives to the flour that are completely unnecessary. These were very good, tasted just like regular pasta. And the packaging promises you can't overcook them. But, they take about 20 minutes to cook.

After you cook your shells, spread a layer of sauce on the bottom of your pan, stuff each one with ricotta filling, and then pour more sauce on top of the shells (I think I used about 2/3 of the sauce.) Bake for 30 minutes at 350F.

Enjoy!!

Thanksgiving Dinner, Take 2 (final version)

Finally getting around to posting this...

The winner was the Baked Thanksgiving Risotto from the Vegan Holiday Kitchen, minus the corn. Not only was it delicious, it was the easiest risotto I've ever made. Seriously. I used delicata squash for the squash, since that's what I had, and the sweet flavor of the delicata complimented the red beans and spinach wonderfully.

So, there was the risotto, the sweet potato biscuits, and the carrot cranberry cake, all from Vegan Holiday Kitchen: More than 200 Delicious, Festive Recipes for Special Occasions.

It was delicious.