Vegan Nostalgia

I've been vegetarian since age 14, but I didn't really start cooking until my early post-college years. When I moved to Memphis after college graduation, I owned one vegetarian cookbook — Vegetarian Comfort Food by Jennifer Warren. It's a book I was given to review for my college newspaper, The Arkansas State University Herald. Little did I know back then, I'd eventually end up reviewing vegan cookbooks for my blog as a second job.

Since it was my only cookbook, I made a ton of recipes from Warren's book. That's where I got my to-go homemade spaghetti sauce recipe, and it's where I found one of my all-time favorite uses for tofu. I used to make the Colonel's Fried Tofu from that book all the time. In fact, that was the first recipe I ever made that called for nutritional yeast. I remember reading "nutritional yeast" in the ingredients and thinking, "What the hell is that?"

I found it at a local, now-defunct Memphis health food store and immediately brought the Colonel's Fried Tofu into heavy dinnertime rotation. It's battered in eggs, but since I stopped eating eggs in 2004, I've quit making the recipe.

Of course, eggs are an easy substitute in vegan cooking, but honestly, after going vegan, I'd stocked up on so many other cookbooks that I just forgot about this beloved recipe until last week. I had extra tofu in the fridge and lots of Vegg powder in the pantry. So I veganized the recipe using Vegg eggs in place of chicken eggs:

My first bite brought me back to the early days. Those were simpler times when I only made a few things over and over. Now I rarely ever make the same thing twice. This may be one of my all-time favorite ways to eat tofu and it's so easy! You just dip it in faux eggs (I used Vegg powder, but a mix of cornstarch and soymilk would work too) and then dip it into a mix of bread crumbs, nooch, and parsley, and then you fry it up. Delicious!

On another note, I've been asked by my Farmie friend Douglas to mention the Farm's upcoming World Peace Diet Conference with vegan guru Will Tuttle. It's happening May 3rd through 6th at the Farm. Check it out if you can! Attendees will have one-on-one time with the World Peace Diet author, vegan cooking classes, guided meditations, and a fun Farm tour! Click here for more info.