Simply prepared vegetables and cooked grains are what we’ve mostly been eating this fall. We still get a lot of kale from our little allotment garden plot – I can’t believe it yields crop until December in Finland! It was especially surprising ot find out since kale is pretty expensive and very hard to find [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged beetroot, burger, garlic, lemon juice, liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, onion, sandwich, sauerkraut, soy sauce, tahini, tofu
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It’s not like I’ve spent the last 10+ years of my life in pursuit of a good imitation of meaty bacon, but now I almost wonder why I haven’t – these soy bacon bits were just so crunchy and chewy and smokey and salty. If I was challenged to fool someone into eating fake meaty [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged bacon, carbonara, chives, garlic, lemon juice, liquid smoke, lunch, nutritional yeast, onion, rice wine vinegar, soy bacon, soy cream, soy flakes, spaghetti, syrup, tamari
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This dish was inspired by the Indian comfort food khichdi, which if I understood correctly can mean quite many things depending on the region and the cook, and is also known as kitchari especially among the ayurvedics in the US. It makes use of rice with some variety of pulses to form a complete meal, [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged asafoetida, basmati rice, bean, black mustard seed, comforting, coriander, cumin, fennel, ginger, Indian, khichdi, kitchari, margarine, mung bean, recipe, rice, tamarind, turmeric, vegan, vegetarian
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We eat lots of tofu, but most of the times it’s just too everyday to blog about. This marinade was one of the best we’ve ever tried, and it worked well on three days in a row – by the first meal, the tofu had marinated for only two hours, but the flavor was already [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged baked tofu, breading, dinner, green peppercorn, marinade, pink peppercorn, recipe, red wine, soy yoghurt, tofu, vegan, vegetarian
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November 21, 2008 – 11:40
I’ve been wanting to make onion soup for a long time, and finally got around doing it now that the days are so dark and cold and rainy that I crave soup constantly. It is so simple to make and so delicious that I’m sure it will be on regular rotation at our house from [...]
November 17, 2008 – 23:48
This soup has typical Finnish fall produce and North African spices. We thought that the earthy and sweet rutabaga combined really well with the rich and complex flavors of ras-el-hanout, the fava beans providing a mild backdrop to it all. Our soup’s enchanting fragrance complemented its taste in an elegant manner.
Soup ingredients:
olive oil for frying
2 [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged carrot, chili, fava bean, garlic, harissa, onion, ras el hanout, recipe, rice wine vinegar, rutabaga, soup, soy yogurt, vegan, vegetarian
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This is just a simple and quick lunch pasta I whipped up, but it came out surprisingly nicely for two reasons I suppose. Firstly, I cut the eggplant in small cubes and fried it until very brown and soft, which added a lot of flavor, and a lovely texture contrast to the lentils. Secondly, I [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged capers, easy, eggplant, garlic, green lentils, lemon, lunch, pasta, recipe, rosemary, vegan, vegetarian
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There had been two ingredients sitting in our pantry for many weeks, demanding my attention: cow peas and crushed hemp seeds. Couple of days ago I finally made some burgers using both the peas and the seeds. Cow peas are brownish red, but otherwise they look just like black-eyed peas. They are actually the same [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged baked, burger, coriander, cow pea, cumin, garam masala, garlic, gluten flour, hemp seed, lemon juice, onion, recipe, turmeric, vegan, vegetarian
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September 30, 2008 – 21:05
Yet another beetroot recipe! This risotto is most delicious and simple to make, although the cooking time was a little long for an improvised lunch dish. Beets are in season so they’re especially nice and sweet this time of year, and there’s double parsley power in there as well: in the form of a root [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged beet, beet risotto, brown rice, lemon, mirin, parsley, recipe, rice, risotto, root parsley, tofu, vegan, vegetarian
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September 16, 2008 – 20:51
We needed a quick and effortless supper on Sunday, since I had a mean flu and Heikki was hurrying to meet some friends. I decided to resort to my trusted veggie soup recipe, but instead of carrots I used lovely beets and the cauliflower that had been sitting in our fridge for a day or [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged beet, beetroot, cashew, cauliflower, easy, lime, lime zest, recipe, soup, vegan, vegetarian
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September 6, 2008 – 18:38
This year was the first time we actually got around growing our own vegetables, and our dear parents with their various summer cottages were the ones who really made it possible. We simply grew the seedlings on our windowsill in the spring, planted them in the soil in early summer, and a month later we [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged baked, beluga lentils, Greek basil, lentil, lentil stuffing, recipe, red lentils, sage, spaghetti squash, stuffed spaghetti squash, vegan, vegetarian
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I have been obsessed with limes since our vacation, and I have a feeling this has something to do with the extremely juicy limes we got in Portugal. Even though the ones we can buy in Finland have just a faint shadow of their Portuguese counterparts’ deliciousness, they do add a lovely fragrance and flavor [...]
My mom gave us some fresh beets from the summer cottage, and this is one of the dishes we used them in. I love quinoa, and my favorite way to cook it is like this: in a pilaf with just a few spices and a vegetable or two. The beluga lentils are delicious, and I [...]
This curry is definitely comfort food at its finest! I wanted a really spicy dish and added some red hot curry powder before serving, but it could be omitted for a milder version. Cubed tomatoes didn’t just add a nice contrasting color for the photo shoot, but also contributed fresh bursts in the midst of [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged cauliflower, chick pea, chili, coconut milk, curry, garlic, ginger, green pea, Indian, potato, vegan, vegetarian
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There’s something irresistible about eggplant, and especially about fried eggplant. We both really liked the gentle spiciness of this breading mixture, and the texture of the dish was very pleasing – the soft eggplant flesh on the inside and the crispy crumbs on the outside.
We served these eggplants with brown rice and a simple [...]
In May, when we gathered some goutweed, we also picked up a lot of nettles (Urtica dioica). Usually, we make pancakes or a sauce from nettles, but this time we wanted to do something different. A non-vegan version of this recipe by Vivi-Ann Sjögren was in the monthly Kuukausiliite supplement of the Finnish newspaper Helsingin [...]
We got The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh a couple weeks ago, and have tried a few dishes out of it so far. It’s an excellent and inspiring book, but we’ve found that we want to make the recipes spicier. For example, the biryani was the first recipe we tried off the book, and [...]
This is just a simple recipe to remind us that not everything edible comes from a supermarket. The name of goutweed reveals a lot – it’s generally thought of as a weed that should be rooted up, not as a green leafy vegetable. The young sprouts can be eaten raw, in salads or on sandwiches, [...]
The idea for this dish came from Antonio Tabucchi’s book Requiem. In one scene, the protagonist dines with a dead friend of his in a restaurant, and they are having sarrabulho, a traditional Portuguese meat dish. While eating, they are discussing how the meat is marinated in some white wine, caraway, garlic, and olive oil. [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged black pepper, caraway, chili, easy, garlic, paprika, potato, side dish, smoked paprika, tofu, white wine
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When I finally tried making my own peanut sauce, I couldn’t believe how easy it is to prepare, and to tweak according to what’s at hand. Sometimes I add lime juice, or leave out lemon grass if we don’t have it, or use coconut milk instead of veggie stock to thin the sauce, and it [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged asian, easy, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, noodle, peanut butter, peanut sauce, recipe, sauce, stir-fry, vegan, vegetarian
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When I was living in Malaysia some years ago, this was one of my favourite take-away dishes. Nearby my workplace there were some food stalls that sold Nasi Lemak wrapped in banana leaves. Basically, it’s rice cooked in coconut milk and some condiments, eaten with sambal and some side dishes – yes, I think the [...]
This dish gets its name (má là = numbing and spicy) from two types of pepper, the numbingly hot aroma of sichuan pepper and the fiery hot flavour of chili pepper. This combination is great even if you’re not that fond of super-spicy food. The tongue-numbing effect of sichuan pepper is felt only after consuming [...]
This was an easy weekday recipe, and very much packed with flavor – thanks to the lovely sun dried tomatoes that flew to us straight from Rome! Lately I’ve realized how much more flavor stays in dried tomatoes when they aren’t preserved in oil, and it doesn’t take that long to rehydrate them either.
We had [...]
February 29, 2008 – 15:40
We both love lasagne, and this is definitively one of our favorite ways to fill those pasta sheets. Fried tempeh crumbs, basil tomato sauce, and white sauce made with cashews and nutritional yeast were a delicious combination in this creamy and hearty and remarkably satisfying lasagne.
Our lasagne wasn’t extremely photogenic, but the side of [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged bechamel, cashew, cheezy sauce, lasagne, recipe, sauce, tempeh lasagne, uncheese, vegan, vegan bechamel, vegan lasagne, vegetarian
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February 21, 2008 – 09:58
These croquettes were made with simple ingredients that we almost always have around the house. Black beans, sunflower seeds, and pink peppercorns were the main components here, but lemon juice, sesame seeds, and ground coriander added a lot of flavor as well. Pink peppercorns and coriander are both fragrant and delicate seasonings, and they paired [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged bean, black bean, black bean croquettes, croquette, garlic, lemon, recipe, sage, sauce, sunflower seeds, tomato, vegan, vegetarian
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February 17, 2008 – 20:54
I fried this tempeh for lunch one day, and didn’t have time to marinate it more than an hour. It was very delicious, which made me realize that tempeh absorbs flavors even more readily than tofu does! Actually, the marinade I used is pretty close to the one we often use for tofu, but I [...]
February 11, 2008 – 22:45
Palak is an Indian spinach dish that everyone knows from Palak Paneer, in which it is served with Indian cheese. I do not think that I ever tasted that dish before going vegan, but I’ve witnessed friends devour it in restaurants numerous times, and have become curious. Palak is delicious on its own, but tofu [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged chili, curry, garlic, ginger, Indian, lemon, onion, palak paneer, palak tofu, recipe, spinach, tofu, vegan, vegetarian
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We had a weekday dinner at its best on Wednesday: delicious five-spiced tofu, slightly sweet and sour stir-fried veggies, and a bowl of brown rice. Yumminess can’t be exaggerated, it was all very delicious. It happened to be the Chinese New Year’s eve as well – everyone was wishing happy new year for each other [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged carrot, chinese, five spice, garlic, ginger, marinade, onion, recipe, sesame oil, sherry, soy sauce, stir-fry, tofu, vegan, vegetarian
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This was a late Sunday lunch that we made quickly. Preparation time is heavily dependent on your chopping skills, since everything needs to be sliced into thin strips or matchsticks. I’m not that quick on the chopping block, but luckily I had Anni to help me. This is an easy recipe to tweak, and indeed, [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged cabbage, carrot, cashew, chinese, garlic, ginger, noodle, sesame oil, soy sauce, stir-fry, tofu
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This soy and cashew loaf has many specialty ingredients in it, but I’m pretty sure that the recipe can be tweaked according to what’s on hand and it’ll be just as good. We both really enjoyed the texture that this loaf got from the chewy soy protein bits and the creamy cashews. I think this [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged cashew, garlic, gluten flour, loaf, meatless loaf, onion, recipe, sesame oil, soy protein granules, vegan, vegan meat loaf, vegetarian
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We baked these pizzas in celebration of snow that finally came to Helsinki on Tuesday – it had been raining water since before Christmas. Watching the snow flakes fall from the sky while devouring a homemade pizza and a bottle of German beer, all in the warmth of our home, is just about as good [...]
This is a great simple soup that I discovered when I was in Fez a few years back. We stayed in the old town, medina, and close to our hotel was a hole-in-a-wall type of breakfast place, serving freshly baked bread and chickpea soup. The soup was so delicious that we went there every morning, [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged appetizer, arab, chick pea, cumin, garlic, Habeeb Salloum, leek, paprika, potato, pressure cooking, recipe, soup, vegan, vegetarian
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Rendang is definitely my favourite Indonesian dish. I’ve been meaning to make a veganized version of it for a while, but since the cooking takes so long, I’ve been putting it off. Christmas at the cottage was the perfect place to make it. We cooked this on the day before Christmas Eve, while heating up [...]
This is something that we cooked for a quick dinner. Since we got a pressure cooker, we’ve started using much more dried pulses. It’s great not having to plan in advance, and just quickly cook up some beans when you feel like it. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, this isn’t as fast to [...]
This was our vegan take on the traditional Finnish Christmas ham, although its similarities to a ham are very minor. We coated our roast with Dijon mustard that’s seasoned with garlic and red bell pepper – I am not a great mustard lover, but that particular mustard is delicious. We used pink peppercorns for decoration [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged christmas, garlic, gluten flour, lemon, marinade, recipe, red bell pepper, roast, seitan, soy sauce, tofu, vegan, vegan roast, vegetarian
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This is a simple tofu marinade we used as a base for our Christmas Roast. After making the roast, we fried the rest of the tofu in some olive oil, and had it on sandwiches.
Here’s what we used:
500 g firm tofu
4 cloves of garlic
3 and ½ dl vegetable stock
1 and ½ dl red wine
½ dl [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged basil, christmas, garlic, marinade, recipe, rosemary, soy sauce, thyme, tofu, vegan, vegetarian
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December 19, 2007 – 09:59
These vegan cutlets were mainly inspired by the Chickpea Cutlets from the Veganomicon cookbook. We made those cutlets a few weeks ago and they were really good. I liked the idea of mixing beans and gluten flour, since gluten can be too glutinous on its own, and the cutlets were really easy to prepare. Another [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged basil, black eyed pea, cutlet, garlic, gluten flour, lemon, recipe, soy sauce, tofu, vegan, vegetarian
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December 13, 2007 – 17:53
We had a triangular-themed dinner on Monday; these tempeh triangles were served with triangular carrots, and the accompanying black bean salad was surrounded by cucumber triangles. The tempeh was first cooked, then marinated, and finally baked in a hot oven, and it ended up being very juicy and delicious.
Heikki has successfully taught me to eat [...]
December 12, 2007 – 20:11
This is something we quickly improvised for a comforting Sunday dinner. Toor dal is a new acquaintance, apparently one of the most popular split peas used in Indian cooking, although we didn’t use Indian spices for this. The sweetness of the root vegetables was balanced by raw red onions, and toor dal got some extra [...]
December 10, 2007 – 08:49
We had this curry for dinner with basmati rice and cooling soy yogurt sauce. It was delicious, one of the best curries I’ve ever made. Toasting the spices and mixing my own curry paste must have been the secret of its taste.
Curry paste:
2 tablespoons grated coconut
1 teaspoon each: mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged basmati, chana dal, cilantro, curry, curry paste, eggplant, lemon, mint, onion, raita, recipe, soy yogurt, split chick pea, vegan, vegetarian
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This was a tasty dinner; crumbled seitan and mixed beans in a smokey chipotle tomato stew, wrapped in a soft corn tortilla along with garlicky cumin soy yogurt sauce and cubed cucumber.
It’s pretty hard to find smoked chipotle chilis in Helsinki, in fact I’ve never seen them, so I just used a cheap Pirkka-brand sauce [...]
Following in the footsteps of Susan’s veggeroni, and a number of other similar recipes I’ve seen floating around the Internet, this is my own version of oven baked gluten. This makes a dense, sort of dry salami-like wheat gluten log, ideal for crumbling for further use.
This seitan has some tiny air bubbles in it, as [...]
This is the latest attempt of my ongoing mission to master the seasoning of textured soy protein (TSP). Usually I’m lazy and just boil the TSP chunks in a broth made from vegetable stock cubes, but this time I tried something fancier. We thought that the result was really good.
For the soy strips:
100 g [...]
By Heikki
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged chili, cooking, garlic, recipe, rice vinegar, sherry, soy sauce, textured soy protein, tsp, vegan, vegetarian
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November 30, 2007 – 12:50
We had these tofu patties for lunch two days in a row: first day served with cous cous and some leftover gravy, and the next day with olive mashed potatoes and basil yogurt sauce. We thought the patties tasted even better the next day, and thus would be perfect to have in the freezer for [...]
November 24, 2007 – 16:21
On Thursday evening after two dance classes I was pretty hungry, and Heikki was at a somewhat early Christmas party. Luckily this dinner didn’t take me more than about 10 minutes to make. I had marinated the tofu earlier the same day, instant cous cous cooked in a few minutes – and the Ajvar yogurt [...]
By Anni
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Posted in Recipes
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Also tagged arab, chili, cous cous, easy, fried tofu, harissa, lime, pressing tofu, recipe, soy sauce, soy yogurt sauce, tofu, vegan, vegetarian, za'atar
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