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Green Plate Special, Extra Crispy Baked Orange Tofu with Broccolini and rice. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald I’ve been thinking a lot about my meat-eating habits lately. Maybe it’s because I’m scared of climate change , or I may have been recently meat-shamed by a vegan who is vocal over animal cruelty, or perhaps I’m shocked by my cholesterol levels coming in just a wee bit north of normal for the first time in my life.
Whatever the motivation, the wheels are turning toward less day-to-day meat consumption. I’m certainly not alone. After all, we just wrapped up Veganuary.
Organized since 2014 by a nonprofit with the same name that educates eaters about the ins and outs of eating a diet free from animal products, Veganuary challenges individuals to eat a vegan diet for the first 31 days of the new year when “eat better” resolutions are front of mind. The fact that 10 years later millions of eaters worldwide sign up for this challenge annually encourages food producers to manufacture more vegan products and restaurants and retail outlets to stock them. I eat most vegetables.
I keep pots of cooked local beans and whole grains in my fridge to bulk up my plant-protein quotient. I do Meatless Mondays with a host of pasta dishes and even have a technique for baking tofu that occasionally hits the dinner table on other nights of the week. However, becoming a vegan is not in the cards for me because, people, please, I need a base level of real cheese and whole eggs in my life.
Even strict vegetarianism seems out of reach because sometimes my body craves a juicy burger , a soothing bowl of chicken soup , a dozen cold Maine oysters, or a basket of pollock and chips from the James Beard-nominated Fish & Whistle in Biddeford. So that makes me a flexitarian. This term, coined by nutritionist Dawn Jackson Blatner in the early 2000s, is a portmanteau word that combines “flexible” and “vegetarian.
” When she published “The Flexitarian Diet” in 2009, Blatner set precise parameters for three levels of flexitarian. A novice eats about eight meatless meals and no more than 26 ounces of meat, poultry or fish per week. An advanced flexitarian has between 10 and 14 meatless meals and only 18 ounces of meat per week.
An expert has 15 or more meatless meals and stays under 9 ounces of animal protein. I come in at the high end of advanced. Maine-made Heiwa tofu coated with a mixture of spices and cornstarch.
Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald To put things in perspective, analysts estimate that the average American in 2024 consumed 300 pounds of chicken, beef, pork, seafood, turkey, lamb and veal combined. Yep, that’s about three-quarters of a pound of animal protein per day per capita. The CDC says the average American needs to cut meat consumption by 40 percent to be healthy, which at the end of the day, means no more than 8 ounces of meat.
And that number is still twice what the average citizen on earth consumes. If everybody else can get by with just 4 ounces of meat and fish a day, it’s arguable we can too. Here are three ways to make that happen.
1. Take sausage off the breakfast table. Rather, use interestingly flavored sausage sparingly (like 12 ounces for 4-6 servings) to flavor, but not anchor, bean-based soups for lunch and pasta dishes for dinner.
Local producers of excellent sausages are the butchers at Colvard & Co. in Ellsworth, Bow Street Market in Freeport, Farmers’ Gate Market in Leeds, and The Sausage Kitchen in Lisbon Falls. 2.
Cut your chicken on the bias before bringing it to the table. If you bring four (8-ounce) chicken breasts to the table to serve four people, chances are they each will grab one and eat the whole thing. But if you cook two (8-ounce) chicken breasts and cut them thinly, in a diagonal motion on the bias into 8-10 pieces each, and fan them out on a plate before bringing them to the table with a starch and two types of vegetables, eaters likely won’t notice they’re eating less meat.
3. Beef up your stews with local mushrooms, caramelized tomato paste and roasted sweet potatoes. In a comparison of 10 American beef stew recipes, I found that the average amount of beef required to make six servings was 21⁄2 pounds.
Sure, you can argue that beef stew should taste, well, beefy. But you can pull off that same level of umami by incorporating mushrooms, tomato paste and sweet potatoes, all of which contain decent levels of the amino acid glutamate. Try browning just 1 pound of stew beef in a heavy-bottom pot, then use a slotted spoon to transfer the browned beef to a plate.
Add 2 cups of sliced fresh or reconstituted dried mushrooms to the pot and cook them in the rendered beef fat until they’re golden brown. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste and keep cooking, stirring all the while, until the paste coating the mushrooms gets darker. This caramelization process will make the finished stew taste that much meatier.
Add your liquid (wine, stock, beer...
) and return the meat back to the pot. While the stew simmers to perfection, roast bite-sized pieces of sweet potato in the oven. Just before serving the stew, stir the roasted sweet potatoes into the pot.
It’s easy to find local mushrooms: Most indoor winter farmers’ markets in Maine have a mushroom vendor, and the Springvale-based Mousam Valley mushrooms are sold at Hannaford, Shaw’s and Whole Foods. I have loads more flexitarian tricks to share and limited space in this column, so please reach out if you need more ideas. Or wait for future columns.
Extra Crispy Baked Orange Tofu with Broccolini Green Plate Special, Extra Crispy Baked Orange Tofu with Broccolini Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland My kids love orange chicken when we order Chinese takeout, so I’ve worked to make this recipe as satisfyingly crispy without frying the tofu in a lot of oil. The trick is pressing the liquid out of strips of tofu rather than the whole block for 30 minutes and then coating the strips well with cornstarch. I serve the finished dish with rice.
Serves 4 For the tofu: 16-ounce block of extra-firm tofu (such as Maine-made Heiwa tofu) 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon table salt 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika 2 tablespoons cornstarch For the sauce: 1 tablespoon orange zest and 1 cup orange juice 1/3 cup honey 2 tablespoons rice vinegar 2 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari 1 teaspoon grated ginger 2 garlic cloves, finely diced 1⁄2 to 1 teaspoon red chili flakes 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 cups steamed broccolini To garnish: Sliced scallions, chopped cilantro, toasted sesame seeds Steamed rice, to serve Remove the tofu from the package and cut it into equal slices length-wise. Line a cutting board with a towel, arrange the tofu pieces on the towel, fold the towel over the tofu, place another cutting board on top of the towel, and place a cast iron pan on top. Let the tofu drain for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Tear the tofu into 2-inch pieces and place them in a bowl. Add the olive oil, garlic powder, salt and smoked paprika.
Toss well so that all the tofu is well coated. Sprinkle the cornstarch over the tofu and toss again until the tofu is evenly coated and the starch is absorbed. Spread the dressed tofu around the baking sheet so that no pieces are touching.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, tossing the tofu halfway, until the pieces are golden brown. While the tofu bakes, make the sauce. Combine the orange juice, honey, rice vinegar, soy sauce or tamari, ginger, garlic and chili flakes in a small saucepan.
Place the pan over medium heat, bring to a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes. In a small dish combine the cornstarch with 1 tablespoon warm water to make a slurry. Add the slurry to the simmering sauce and cook for 1 minute more so that it thickens.
Stir in the orange zest. Combine the broccolini, baked tofu and sauce in a large bowl. Toss well.
Garnish with scallions, cilantro and sesame seeds. Serve with rice. Local foods advocate Christine Burns Rudalevige is the former editor of Edible Maine magazine and the author of “Green Plate Special,” both a column about eating sustainably in the Portland Press Herald and the name of her 2017 cookbook.
She can be contacted at: [email protected]. Vegan Kitchen: Low in fat, high in protein, tofu is delicious, too We invite you to add your comments.
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