Beyond Rice and Tofu

When most people think of grilling, they think of meat, poultry or fish. And I’ll admit that I do still like to eat grilled meat. Since I am the flexitarian and my husband is the vegetarian, we do periodically grill meat or poultry, for me. In fact, my vegetarian husband is quite good at grilling meat for me. And he has no problem making meat for me because we know that my body needs some meat from time to time and it is a good source of B12, which I have problems absorbing.

Over the years we have grilled many things. Some of our favorite things are grilled tofu, grilled mixed vegetables and corn on the cob. Recently we decided to break out the grill and start up the grilling season. Right now we are on a kick of grilled tofu, using Sea’s recipe for Yummy Grilled Tofu. I will also make this marinade and use on chicken, also yummy! The best way to make it is to slice the tofu into large slabs, typically 8 slabs per 1 pound hunk of extra-firm tofu. I then press the slabs between a large folded tea towel for 15 minutes or more. The less water, the better, the more marinade it soaks up. Then I marinade the tofu while I prep the other dishes.

We also like this marinade recipe from Cooking Light magazine for tofu and chicken. But if you are gluten free, just make sure you buy miso paste that is gluten free – some are made with barley.

As for grilling the tofu, it helps to either grease the grill a bit, as the tofu sticks, or to grill it on a piece of foil. We often use a piece of foil to ‘protect’ my husband from the meat cooties if we have also grilled meat on the grill that day.

We also like to make grilled mixed vegetables in a grill basket. Typically I chop up a lot of onion, slice baby carrots into thirds, chop up a red bell pepper and a head of broccoli and some of the stems and toss with some Italian salad dressing before it goes on the grill. We recently got a new grill basket from my mom, who sells Pampered Chef, and we like it a lot. We just wish it was bigger!

This particular time we also made potato packets – something from my Girl Scouting days. Slice some potatoes and maybe some onions, green bell peppers and/or carrots. Place one serving on a piece of foil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper or whatever seasoning you’d like. Mrs. Dash, oregano, whatever. Put a small amount of butter on top and then wrap up the packets with an air-tight seal so that the potatoes will steam themselves. I also put about a tablespoon of water in the packet too, just before I fold up the last side.

Sometimes we will just grill an entire sweet onion. Be sure to make more than one though as these are tasty.  Clean and trim it and wrap it up in foil with some butter and stick it down in the coals. Delicious. Also great as part of a campfire meal.

It isn’t corn season here yet, although I have seen it in the grocery stores. Growing up in the Midwest with grandparents who grew sweet corn, I was spoiled. And it just doesn’t feel right to eat corn before the end of July. Plus it is grocery store corn and I am a bit of a sweet corn snob. So no corn here for us yet. But when we do make it, we typically soak the ears in the husks in some water for about 20 – 30 minutes and then just put them directly on the grill. Make sure you turn them a few times so that they cook evenly. Pull back the hot husks, carefully, with oven mitts, and top with butter and salt. Or you can try other toppings like this one I saw over at Snack Girl this week. I might have to try this soon!

We used to also grill Portobello mushrooms for my husband frequently – I am not a huge mushroom fan – but they have fallen out of favor lately, for no particular reason. He usually marinades them in garlic and balsamic vinegar.

This last time, we grilled pineapple for the first time. Pineapples were on sale and my husband loves pineapple, so I grabbed one. I did coat them in a ‘marinade’, though they don’t really need it. I made the sauce out of brown sugar, lime juice, butter, cinnamon and salt. It was very good but I think we could do without the extra sugar and fat and next time we will grill them plain or with just a bit of lime and cinnamon. We really did enjoy the cinnamon flavor with the pineapple.

What are your favorite vegetarian grill specials? We haven’t tried grilling gluten free pizza yet…have you?

This message is linked up to Gluten Free Wednesdays where this week’s theme was burgers. No burgers here this week but instead we have other fun stuff to put on the grill!