Maple and balsamic roast vegetables and tofu

With the weather cooling down, I'm suddenly enjoying using my oven. Over summer, it tended to heat the kitchen to horribly hot levels, making me too warm to enjoy whatever I was making. Now, it's a welcome source of heat. Before long, I'll probably be putting it on before strictly necessary, swinging as I do from running hot to running cold in a matter of weeks. Mr Bite doesn't understand how I can have such poor temperature regulation, and frankly neither do I.

Moving on from temperature related matters, though, today is not so much about my oven as about this recent meal to come out of it: a variation of Maple Roasted Vegetables and Tofu from Vegan Dad. I've had this recipe bookmarked since before Christmas and it's rather nice to have finally got to it (especially as there are many more bookmarked recipes that are still waiting their turn!).

My version was modified to the ingredients I had to hand, and to a certain extent to my tastes, but it retains the spirit of the original recipe and credit most go there for the inspiration.

Maple and balsamic roast vegetables and tofu

Adapted from Maple Roasted Vegetables and Tofu at Vegan Dad

Serves 4

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Ingredients

1 cup cooked chickpeas

1 pack (~350g) firm tofu, pressed and sliced

1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced

2 medium white potatoes, diced

1 yellow onion, cut into slices

2 orange carrots, cut into chunks

2 purple carrots (of course :-) ), cut into chunks

1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped

1 tbsp coconut oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, divided (1/8 cup + 1/8 cup)

1/2 cup maple syrup, divided (1/4 cup + 1/4 cup)

2 tbsp water

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Place the pressed tofu in 1/8 cup of the balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup of the maple syrup and leave to marinate for at least an hour.

When the tofu has marinated, mix the remaining balsamic vinegar and maple syrup together with the oil, water, basil and oregano. Preheat the oven to 220'C.

Place the marinated tofu and all vegetables in a large oven-proof baking dish. Add the balsamic / maple syrup mixture and pour over the other ingredients. Toss to coat.

Roast for 70 minutes, or until all vegetables are cooked, stirring at 30, 45 and 60 minutes.

I found it amusing how different this looked when photographed after cooking (in my kitchen's poor lighting, a constant challenge with evening meals; above) and the following day as leftovers (in natural light; below). No amount of editing was going to make these photos look the same!

Photos aside, I was glad I'd kept this dish in my To Make list, because I really loved it. The maple syrup, balsamic and herbs all came through as distinct flavours, but mixed together in a way that gave sweetness as well as depth. The contrast in textures from the tofu, vegetables and chickpeas was also enjoyable and it was one of those dishes I could happily have eaten for lunch and dinner on the same day.

You could, of course, also make this with different vegetables (pumpkin and beetroot come to mind) and with meat instead of tofu. I'm already looking forward to making it again, but think I may be too attached to this version to modify it much.

What have you enjoyed from your oven recently? And are you usually an oven cooker, or more a stove top person? I'm slightly biased towards the latter...

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