Maple-Glazed Butternut Squash with Tofu

Vegan Maple-Glazed Butternut Squash and Tofu One of my favorite things about coming home after traveling is getting back into my kitchen and being able to make a good home cooked meal. For me, traveling usually means a lot of eating out and splurging a little bit in the calorie department… vegetables are often neglected more than they should be. This week when I got home I was craving something fresh and flavorful and found that in preparation for my return Taste Tester #1 had gone grocery shopping and picked up some of my healthy favorites, butternut squash and tofu.

After a bit of looking around my cupboard and recipe searching, I came upon a promising looking one from Karmatarian that included tofu and butternut squash. Her recipe called for raisins and walnuts, which I didn’t have in my cupboard and so I substituted in some honey roasted peanuts, which worked out really well! I find that it is perfectly acceptable to substitute similar ingredients that you have on hand; it can keep the cost of cooking down by using your own pantry staples, and you get to be creative. It didn’t even occur to me until I had finished making the meal that I’d created something vegan and it was easy and delicious.

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Ingredients:

• 1/2 medium butternut squash
• 1, 14 oz package of extra firm tofu
• ½ red onion
• ½ cup honey roasted peanuts
• 1 C farro

Marinade Ingredients:

• 3/4 C olive oil
• 1/2 C maple syrup
• 1/4 C rice vinegar
• 1/4 C soy sauce, I actually used teriyaki sauce since that was all I had in the fridge!
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tsp fresh or dried rosemary
• 1 tsp fresh or dried thyme
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Cut the tofu into 1 inch strips and press and drain. I usually sandwich the tofu in between a few paper towels and stack a big book on top, these helps remove a lot of the extra water from the tofu so it’s able to soak up the marinade easier. I usually let this sit for at least 15 minutes.
3. While the tofu is draining mix up the marinade by combining the maple syrup, soy sauce, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, rice wine vinegar, garlic and cinnamon, whisk together.
4. Cube up the tofu into about 1 square inch pieces and toss into the marinade to sit for at least a half hour.
5. Peel and cube up the butternut squash into about ½ square inch pieces, don’t worry about them being perfect.
6. Thinly slice or largely dice the red onion.
7. Add the butternut squash and onion to the tofu in the marinade, being careful to not break up the tofu while coating everything.
8. Add all the coated ingredients to a large baking dish sprayed with non-stick olive oil spray and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, toss and bake for another 12-15 minutes.
9. Cook the farro according to package directions and feel free to add a little bit of the extra marinade to the farro when it’s done cooking. Since the marinade didn’t touch any raw meat it’s still fine to use as a sauce!
10. Spoon the farro onto a plate and place the roasted butternut squash and tofu on top
11. Enjoy!

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*Recipe adapted from Karmatarian’s Maple Rosemary Roasted Butternut Squash with Raisins and Walnuts

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