Vegan Mofo: Tofu Loaf with Green Beans

Somehow in 10 or so years of cooking vegan I've never tried to make tofu loaf. Tempeh Loaf a few times, but never tofu. Last week I was browsing The Chicago Diner Cookbook and it occurred to me it might be interesting to try. I very loosely followed the recipe in there, substituting oats for sesame seeds, based on suggestions in recipes like this one.  (Oprah even has a recipe for Tofu Loaf. Lots of ingredients in that one.)

I had a larger pan and less tofu on hand (it was 20oz.) than the recipes called for, so I improvised by adding the last two Tofurky sausages we had left. They were chopped and added after blending the tofu (with oil) in the food processor. They did a nice job of making the whole dish less tofu-flavored, which has perhaps been part of the reason I haven't tried it before. It also added some spices (it was the Italian style) in addition to the thyme I added. Other ingredients were shredded carrots (made it yellow!) and chopped onions.

We also had green beans, fresh from the farmer's market, on the side. Based on the suggestion in the Veganomicon, they were simply roasted with some olive oil, salt and pepper.  Also turned a few hoagie rolls, picked up at the Pearl Bakery booth at the Saturday Market, into garlic bread slices. (Not all of their breads are vegan, but they are good about providing ingredient information) Chuck had done that earlier this week. I thought it was clever so I copied it. It made for pretty satisfying garlic bread.

The tofu loaf was good both with the last of our leftover mushroom gravy and without any topping, which we had tonight:

 

I can see making tofu loaf again, plus it makes about 3 meals worth of food!