Necessity and leftovers are the mother of culinary creativity in my house, especially on another Meatless Monday. I enjoy the challenge of designing delicious and easy meals from the often strange mix things in the kitchen any given day, but weekends tend to yield interesting ingredients and leftovers.

We had an awesome brunch yesterday to celebrate my husband’s birthday. At his request, I made my sweet potato hash, which can be a little tedious to prepare, but worth the effort. Here’s my original sweet potato hash recipe, which is also still evolving . . . this week’s version included some delicious little yukon gold potatoes, and in addition to my usual organic ruby red sweet potatoes, I found some purple sweet potatoes from Hawaii and added them to the mix! I had some extra cooked little yummy yukon gold potatoes. Hmmmmm . . . had a hankerin’ for brussels sprouts, which I had gotten the day before. Thinking a one-bowl meal was probably the most efficient way to do tonight’s meal as the clock was ticking away, I decided to add carrots and some cubed extra-firm tofu to this mix. I decided to try a roasting glaze that I’ve used to fish back in the old days.

Ingredients

veggies & tofu
2 dozen very small yukon gold potatoes (boiled for 20 minutes)
1/2 pound brussels sprouts (cleaned, stems trimmed and cut in half)
2 carrots (sliced)
1/2 block of extra firm organic tofu (drained and cut into 1″ cubes)

glaze
5 Tablespoons olive oil
3 Tablespoons dijon mustard
3 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
1/2 teaspoon good sea salt
pepper to taste (freshly ground)

Instructions

• While you are boiling the potatoes in salted water, prepare the other vegetables and place in a large bowl and set aside.
• Drain or press the tofu to extract as much of the fluid as possible.
• Whisk together the glaze ingredients.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Drain the potatoes and dry all the veggies of excess fluid.
• Add the tofu to the vegetable bowl.
• Add the glaze fluid and mix thoroughly into the veggie and tofu bowl.
• Pour the veggie and tofu mixture into a large glass baking pan, spreading into a single layer if possible.
• Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the brussels sprouts are browning and soft in the middle.

eat. blog. be merry!