It’s another end of the week and the fridge is getting empty; just a few items left here and there. I opened the fridge and just found 2 green cayenne peppers, a red bell pepper, 1 onion, 2 Serrano chilies, 3 ultra ripe tomatoes, 4 cloves of garlic, and a container of tofu. Slim pickin’s!

close up of my spicy pepper and tofu entree

I remember I went to an Indonesian restaurant in the gourmet ghetto of Berkley few months ago. We had gone for an art show benefit at the greenlighting institute where our friend Christian works. But looking at art can make a man hungry. At the restaurant I ordered a dish with vegetables that was oozy, spicy, sweet, savory and sour. Basically perfect. I forget the exact name and my online search did not return any result. All I can say is that it was tasty and healthy. So I tried to reproduce it at home as follows:

Vegetarian Spicy Tofu and Pepper Surprise Entrée

Ingredients:
3 tbsp canola oil
All the veggies above roughly chopped (remove the ribs and seeds of Serrano peppers)
1/3 cup ketchup
Salt
Black pepper
Rinsed and dried tofu cut into medium sized cubes

How too:
Using a non stick pan, add oil and sauté peppers and onion for about 10 minutes on high heat, stirring constantly until vegetables shrink and begin to brown. Add garlic and tomato, stir. Let cook until tomato pieces collapse and skin begins to separate from flesh. Remove tomato skin if you wish. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Add ketchup and tofu. Give it a good stir and cook for another 5-8 min so all flavors marry together.

Serve it over Thai fragrant jasmine rice. The crowd will love it! This time around though, I served it with my Japanese kabocha risotto.