Meatless Mondays

In the year 2003, Johns Hopkins started a program as part of their healthy lifestyles program, called Meatless Mondays. I have not been a faithful follower of this program, but I think this is a good time to re-institute it. Last Monday, we did have a pasta with cheese dish, so that qualified. Tonight we had Grilled Vegetables and Tofu, and Indian Potato Salad. This menu was inspired by Bal Arneson's show on the Cooking Channel called Spice Goddess. I started with the potato salad which is a completely different process that we are accustomed to. You saute red onion and crushed garlic in grapeseed oil, then add the spice mixture of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, turmeric, cardamom seeds and salt and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add a pound of baby red potatoes that have been quartered, some sour cream, chopped tomatoes and water. Bring to a boil, and then simmer until potatoes are done. While the potatoes were simmering, I started working on the coating for the vegetables and tofu. I started with crushed garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander, grapeseed oil, balsamic vinegar, honey and salt and black pepper. Into this mixture, I added two cut up red peppers, asaparagus, portobello mushrooms, and 1 lb. thickly sliced tofu. The vegetables and tofu were cooked on the gas grill until done with beautiful grill marks. Even though the Spice Goddess did not pair the potato salad with the grilled vegetables and tofu, I decided to make both and it worked pretty well. I felt that I needed a starch to go with the protein from the tofu and the nutrients from the vegatables; hence the potato salad. I'm looking forward to more meatless Monday meals.