Dinner Plate #71

 

I tried something new, and it worked! So here is broccoli-mushroom casserole, marmalade tofu steaks (recipe from Essy Cooks), some Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing, and steamed carrots.

I love green bean casserole, and I still had half a can of French fried onions from my last green bean casserole, but I wanted to try the classic in a new fashion, plus I didn't have any green beans. So I made my usual green bean casserole, sort of, but with chopped broccoli and julienned carrots instead of green beans. It still had mushrooms and onions, and the sauce was still amazing. I highly recommend trying different veggies out in your green bean casserole recipe! Really, a creamy, savory mushroom sauce studded with fried onions would probably go with just about any veggie.

And also: Hooray for using what we have!

More on the front of using what I have, I had a partial bag of stuffing mix, and a bit of marmalade, so that suggested to me that I needed to figure out what to do with them. The tofu steaks were simple and utterly delicious. My only complaint would be that it made too much of the cornstarch-based coating, so next time, I'd cut that down some to avoid wasting it. The stuffing is lovely as always.

This felt quite festive, but I'm of the opinion that late winter needs more help sometimes than early winter does. We've had such a hard winter, with all this relentless snow, that I needed some real comfort food. It hit the spot!