Matt’s cousin, Amy, came over for dinner last night. She had been dying to try the lentil tacos (and a recent convert to a vegan diet), so that’s what we had. I also made some tofu ranchero so that we could have lots of leftovers to have another night this week. I also made my own refried beans, which turned out a little on the dry side, but still really tasty.

For the beans, I used 1 medium onion and 1 large jalapeño satueed in about 2 TB of olive oil until they were super soft. I then added about 3 cups of cooked pinto beans and I smashed them up with a potato masher. A little S&P and I was done! I topped them with a bit of chopped cilantro just to give them an extra bit of flavor. As I said, they were slightly dry and I think next time I will add in a bit of veg stock to fix that. Other than that, they were incredibly yummy, and not spicy at all.

When Matt and I lived in San Francisco, there was a taqueria around the corner from our apartment that offered tofu rachero as a burrito or taco filler. I was scared to try it at first, but I’m glad I eventually came to my senses because it’s AWESOME! I did a search on the internet for a ranchero sauce recipe and came up with this one that has served me well for the last few years. Since I don’t follow it exactly, here is my version of it:

Tofu Rachero

1 T olive oil

1 jalapeno, diced

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 28-oz can diced tomatoes

1 15-oz can tomato sauce

2 cups vegetable stock

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp cumin

1 1/2 tsp oregano

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 package of extra firm tofu, chopped into cubes

S&P

Heat a medium sauce pan over medium heat and add olive oil, jalapeno, celery, onion, bell peppers and garlic. Saute about 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, except salt and pepper. Simmer for about 20 minutes and puree using a blender or hand blender. Save half of the sauce for another time. Add tofu to the remaining half and continue to simmer for as long as possible. (One batch of sauce makes too much sauce for one package of tofu, so I usually make a full batch and freeze half for another time). The longer you can let the tofu simmer in the sauce, the better. I will sometimes make the sauce on the stove and then transfer everything to my slow cooker to let it simmer all day. So delicious!

For dessert, I pulled out some cupcakes that I had in my freezer that were leftover from Emma’s birthday. As I was flipped through Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, I came across the photo of the cookies ‘n cream cupcake. It’s just a plain vanilla frosting with some Newman O’s crunched in… mmmmmm!!!