home is where the happy is

I have a confession to make: I am not all that excited about going back to work tomorrow.

I had such a nice weekend; it was really, truly enjoyable. Why ruin it by starting a new week? Is Monday really that necessary?

Yesterday, I woke up to - you guessed it - more snow! What an excellent start to the weekend! Actually, sleeping until I decided to get up was the excellent start, but snow was a terrific way to keep the fun going. It didn't accumulate at all, but it was gorgeous floating around in the air. I enjoyed some coffee and breakfast, and after a satisfying lunch, it was time to go food shopping. I'll spare you the boring details, but after that chore was conquered, I went to my Saturday job and found myself wishing I could make it my only job. It really is fulfilling, but I am basing that on the way it feels to see two girls I've been teaching for 8 years or so and recognize how far they've come. I remember how completely frustrating the first year of lessons can be and how some people just can't/won't learn. I did teach "full-time" for a while and depending on it for my complete income really extinguished any flame of passion I might have had for it at that time, so I'll let it go at that.

Returning home to a fully stocked fridge and cupboards, I decided to kick off my new menu by cooking up some Spanish Veggie Stew with Spanish Rice, both from The Accidental Vegan.


It was something of an exercise in patience. I have nearly given up on brown rice. When I was at Whole Foods last week, I picked up some short-grain brown rice, stupidly thinking that it would cook slightly faster than long-grain brown rice. NOPE. After the first hour of boiling, I lost track of how long it took. I'm not convinced that it was actually done when I served it, but I was done boiling it. I started it well before I started simmering the stew, and it was still going for a while after the stew was very fully cooked.

I will probably make this again, but without brown rice of any length.

Tonight, I made Seitan Cacciatore, also from TAV. It is so easy and so tasty and works well with [much faster cooking] Basmati rice. I also threw together a couple of salads. I don't have a whole lot to say about this, other than how good this is and how you should eat it, too.


Earlier today, we had two fun visits: my parents came into the city and took us out for my birthday brunch (yes, a month and a half late - how awful a daughter am I?), and Mister had a playdate with an old friend. By playdate, I mean that the two of them hung out in the midst of Mister's mess, oohing and aahing over dusty bits of audio gear I still don't understand, while I poked through Hi-Fructose and Clean Eating magazines.

If I've never mentioned this before, my parents are awesome. Despite their inclination to think I'm a little off, they continually humor my whims and courageously take those opportunities to open their minds and try something new. Instead of going to our standard brunch spot, I tricked my loving parents into taking us to MiLah Vegetarian. Once there, I was amused, impressed, and proud. It was amusing watching everyone, including Mister, pore over the menu. I was impressed with my father for ordering Tofu Benedict and proud of him for actually eating it all! I got the Tofu Benedict as well, which came with braised kale, roasted tomatoes, and sweet potato home-fries. It was very good.

I am very much in love with the menu and would love to return multiple times for both brunch and dinner so I can try everything...convincing Mister to go with me could prove difficult, though. It seemed to me that everyone's food was very good and I was also very happy with the coffee and the fruit plate. Mister's grudge is with the staff, and although they were friendly, I am somewhat in agreement with him. It seemed like everyone on staff today was a teenager or college kid...resulting in Mister not getting his "bacon" and getting sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes, which makes for a sad Mister.

In any case, I got my birthday presents! They're all wonderful! I got some kitchen toys: a vegetable peeler that you wear on your finger - I can't wait to see how that works - and a vegetable "peeler" that juliennes the veggies. That will save me SO MUCH TIME. It only got better from there:


That's right, a whole box full of tasty treats for me! That's a nice little picture, isn't it? Funny story, though - my mother gave me the Larabars because she couldn't stand the one she tried. I tried to explain that you have to give it a few bites, but she wasn't having it. More for me!

She saved the best for last, though. I am thrilled to introduce you to....another cookbook!


I had this on my Christmas Wish List, because I can never collect enough recipes that can be prepared quickly. I mean, seriously - I don't start cooking dinner until 8:30 at the very earliest on work nights.

I''ll leave you with a little tangent from that: My sister was born on Christmas Eve. Don't feel bad for her. She has never gotten a Christmas-Birthday present to my knowledge, specifically because everyone expects that she always gets Christmas-Birthday presents and they feel badly about that. It never happens. She makes out like a bandit. On the other hand, I was born 3 weeks after Christmas...which apparently makes it completely acceptable to give me Christmas-Birthday presents because that probably never happens. Nope, sorry - it happens every year. My parents have never done this to me, but I have grown accustomed to missing those great after-Christmas sales and the reason is this: I give them (at their request) a "Christmas list" every year, and have been doing so since I was a child and still thought I was writing to Santa. From that list, my mother takes advantage of the after-Christmas sales and the wealth of ideas provided to get my birthday presents as well. So every year, I have to wait for three weeks until my birthday (this year a little longer, but it was my own fault) to find out if there is anything on that list that I really wanted but didn't get and now have to buy myself.

The point of all this? Nothing really - I just had a great weekend and I don't want it to end!

wintertime, and the livin' is easy

Having "wasted" my day off enjoying myself yesterday, I made the only thing for dinner that I had the ingredients left to make: Kedgeree from The Accidental Vegan. I have made kedgeree (kitcheree) before - it's fairly common in vegetarian cookbooks with any kind of international flair. From what I can tell, it is the result of Great Britain's colonization of India. Ordinarily, it is a kind of pilaf, a mixture of lentils and rice (complete protein!) with some herbs and spices mixed in so it's not completely bland. Not exactly main course material...until this kedgeree.

Look at it, all chock full of vegetables! I would dare say that the kale and carrots outnumber the rice and lentils! Having recently noticed how awful brown rice smells, I must admit, I wasn't all that excited about its prominent presence in this dish, but the subtle spices and hearty sauteed kale, balanced by the sweetness of the carrots really gave this kedgeree a pleasant mild flavor. I substituted kalamata olives for the mushrooms in the recipe because Mister hates mushrooms (I'm not a fan myself) and we both love olives. It took some time to prep, but I'll definitely do it again.

After dinner, we needed more cookies, so I whipped up a batch of Banana-Maple Oatmeal Cookies from Susan V at FatFree Vegan Kitchen. They were delightful and very easy to make...even easier to eat! Mister and I ate over half of them last night - it's amazing how much easier it is to overindulge when something is labeled as low-fat.


Oh! It's time for a flashback - watch the screen:

The year is *mumbleahem* and my dear friend, Courtney, and I are around 21-22 years old. In a moment of what can only be described as a complete lack of good taste, we decide to rent "Spice World" and have a girls' night in. Our snacks of choice? Mini York Peppermint Patties. Why? Because they're low in fat. Go ahead and completely ignore that they're made of sugar and therefore contain a decent number of calories, times however many we each ate. We sure did.
You can also ignore our beverage of choice - Snugglers - instant hot cocoa (surely low-cal) with a generous "shot" of peppermint schnapps.

~*~ end flashback movie ~*~

Since I didn't feel like chasing myself around the streets of Philadelphia, had the wind picked me up and carried me away, I shirked my Domestic Goddess duties yesterday and did not go food shopping. We needed to finish up our big box of spring mix baby greens before they get all wilty and gross anyway, so tonight's dinner was a simple soup and salad:

I'm taking taking a page from Mama Pea's book and photographing every salad I eat - I understand why she does it - they're all beautiful!

I reheated the Potato Corn Chowder from the other night and made a pretty little salad of spring mix, sprouts, carrots, cranberries, broccoli, and olives. Quick-cooking dinners are perfect for Friday nights, even if I didn't actually spend my usual half hour looking for parking when I got home from The Week From Hell at work. It feels good to arrive at the weekend, especially since I took Sunday off.

If you are in need of celebratory libations on this fine weekend, let me add that Smirnoff's Grand Cosmopolitan is very easy to drink. Cheers!

in the bleak midwinter

Actually, we are slightly more than two-thirds through "winter", but this has been a serious winter so far and anyone who has paid attention for the last decade or so that I've been paying attention knows it doesn't actually get [consistently] warm in Philadelphia until May.

It's snowing again. Honestly, it never gets old - I am as happy looking out my window today as I was during the first snowfall in December. I just think it's beautiful, especially in the city where you can watch the flakes dance and swirl in the halo of the street lamps before they lay a velvet carpet on untrod sidewalks.

Today was a great day to just sit inside and be cozy and lazy, so it is very fortunate that it just happened to be my day off from work. I was supposed to do productive things like get my taxes done and go grocery shopping, but why ruin a beautiful day? I'll admit, I pretty well wussed out because of the wind advisory from the National Weather Service making me afraid to drive to my taxes appointment, and when I saw metal signs wiggling around on their posts, it didn't exactly entice me to step outside my door and join the others who were fighting the wind for their scarves. Besides, I work hard enough to justify a day of watching Amy Lee be perfect while mourning that more than three years have passed without a new release from Evanescence.


So I made myself a nice snowy day lunch - leftover French Lentil Soup with a substantial and tasty salad (spring mix, sprouts, broccoli, carrots, kalamata olives).


That was actually last night's dinner - lentil soup and a mega salad with broccoli, spring mix baby greens, mixed sprouts, kalamata olives, and dried cranberries in lieu of clementine segments. I figured that the 3 I ate as a snack at work probably covered my citrus requirement for the day.


I am so impressed with how pretty salads can be if you take five minutes to construct one that doesn't require dressing. I think it's the dressing that messes up the pretty. By the way, for the more observant among you, I did not try to eat my salad with a spoon - that was for the soup. There is actually a fork beside it, it just didn't make it into the picture. And yes, I know the spoon goes on the right and the fork goes on the left, but I wasn't throwing a dinner party, I was just having dinner alone while checking out some amazing artwork in a magazine shared with me by a colleague. He and a friend thought this painting looked like me:


Anyway, with the help of Smirnoff's Grand Cosmopolitan, I constructed this week's menu after my little dinner last night. At the time, I had every intention of shopping for the necessary ingredients today, but when you see the snow blowing from left to right, rather than merely floating peacefully downward, you might not be overly enthusiastic about going to a grocery store where you get to fight the frenzied omg-it's-snowing-I'll-never-eat-again mobs. I know I wasn't.

1. Kedgeree from The Accidental Vegan because I still haven't made it. That's tonight's dinner.

2. Spanish Veggie Stew with Spanish Rice also from The Accidental Vegan because it looked interesting. I actually almost turned past it, but something made me flip the page back.

3. Seitan Cacciatore also from TAV. I made this before, full of trepidation because it borders on warping a traditional recipe, but it came out so well I was craving it again.

4. Cajun Red Beans and Rice also from TAV. I don't know why I'm so attracted to Cajun Beans and Rice recipes, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. (hee hee - you're going to have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day...)

5. Pomegranate Saute on Cinnamon Bulghur from my little holographic gold book of chicken scratch.

6. Spicy Stir-Fry with Clementine, Asparagus, and Tofu from Vegetarian Times: Fast & Easy. I was hellbent on including a tofu-based recipe in my menu because I accidentally bought a tub of tofu a couple of weeks ago that needs to be used up ASAP. I also happen to have half a bag of clementines left, so all I actually need to buy for this recipe is the asparagus!

you learn something new every day (if you pay attention)

Today I learned what an incredible difference organic dried basil makes. It smells noticeably better than "regular" dried basil. The flakes are larger and greener, making it look not quite as dried as the grey-leaf variety (I don't think they do that on purpose, though). The difference in taste, though, was absolutely astonishing. You really wouldn't think that a dried herb being organic would make that big of a difference. You would be wrong.

Yesterday, I learned that Angst Loves Salads as much as he loves plain old spinach. As I have probably made clear in several posts in the past 7 weeks, I am in full-on NeedFreshThings mode. As a result of that and my recent Salad Fails (thanks, Wawa), I have reverted to what I know: If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. That would be less insulting and more accurate, though, if it was:

If you want something done your way, go to Burger King or do it yourself.

Since we're not a big BK family, you can see where this is going. When I set the salads down on the table tonight and returned to the stove to get the soup, I turned around to find Angst sitting in my chair (with impeccable posture), getting dangerously close to my salad. When we eat, he just begs pitifully. We've shared a variety of the mixed greens with him and he seems to enjoy them all, though he is apparently of the opinion that some greens must age, so he'll leave them on the kitchen floor and walk away, but come back in a few minutes acting like it's Christmas and eat them all up.

Anyway, on Sunday night, I made the simply titled Lo Mein from The Accidental Vegan.
I must admit, when I looked at my bowl-o-noodles, I thought it was going to be really bland. I almost brought the tamari to the table in case we needed a little more flavor. I completely underestimated the funny little chinese noodles' ability to soak up the tasty pan sauce after I sauteed the veggies - it was extremely flavorful! I haven't included zucchini in a stir-fry in quite a while, but I was happy with how it came out. Since I have gotten into the habit of assembling our salads while dinner is simmering or doing something else that does not require the constant attention that a stir-fry demands, I just skipped the salads on Sunday.

On Monday, I made Red Lentil Artichoke Stew from The Vegan Table. I also made rice to serve it on top of, but the rice didn't finish cooking until we had finished eating, so it turns out I'm just ahead of the game for the Kedgeree I will make for our final dinner on this menu.
I kind of lost my enthusiasm for this dish in the week it took me to cook it, but once I had the first forkful in my mouth, I gave myself a figurative pat on the back for being able to see from the recipe that this would be a tasty chance to take. It was a delightful main course to follow my beautiful salad:

I dare you to make a prettier one.

Tonight, I made the Potato Corn Chowder from The Accidental Vegan. I've made this a few times before and it never fails to make me warm and happy inside. I am also currently infatuated with the combination of the chilled salad with a soul-warming bowl of steamy soup. I didn't bother with the clementines in our salads tonight, but I liberally sprinkled them with dried cranberries, chopped red pepper, and sliced olives. I think I could probably eat an entire bowl of greens and kalamata olives - the bitterness of some of the darker greens, as well as the sparkle of some of the peppery greens are really enhanced by the salty, yet wine-like flavor of these purple treasures.

The dried cranberries were also tasty, but to make the same claim as above would be like saying, "Wow, this gummy bear sure makes my coffee taste better!"

Speaking of coffee, I had a realization last night: the best part of waking up each day is my oatmeal. My happiness is amplified by the drinking of coffee, but after the coffee, it's more or less downhill from there. Take a shower, beautify, drive an hour to work, spend 8.5ish hours trying to be subtle about pulling my hair out, drive an hour home from work and then loop around my neighborhood several times (up to 45 minutes on top of my commute home, depending on the day) looking for parking, then cook dinner, etc. I guess it starts to pick up a bit there, since I enjoy cooking and the subsequent eating of dinner with my dear hubby.

Anyway, as a result of my revelation, I am consciously trying to enjoy more of my day. My astounding ability to be grumpy must be fought off before it takes over - that was one of the reasons I did Operation Gratitude Attitude in the fall: I wanted to make a habit of finding the silver lining. I may have to revive it in some fashion, perhaps in a new-and-improved form for Lent. In the mean time, if you'd like to read through OGA Part 1, feel free to click on the tag below.

bad, good, better

I believe I mentioned that my Valentine's Day plans were put on hold due to appropriately red drops of water dripping from my bedroom ceiling? Moreso, that our attempt to go out to dinner was delayed by the lack of response from our unmotivated maintenance men? When we finally heard from them(on Saturday night, after our second call), the best they could tell us was that a roofer was coming out on Monday, but on Tuesday, we still had some dripping. When we called again to get a status update, we were told that apparently the roofer was frightened of the snow, but the latest our rotting ceiling would be defended from more melting snow was Friday. That is where tonight's tale begins.

I returned home from a rather busy day at work on Friday and fortunately, found parking with much greater ease than I did on Fat Tuesday. By the way, I don't think we should have Mardi Gras anymore until people start observing Lent again. That's not fair - some people do make sacrifices and life changes during this time of repentance - Kate Moss is going meatless on Mondays! Anyway, when I came home, Mister greeted me with a hug, a kiss, and these words:

"I have good news, bad news, and great news!"
Good news: whoever needed to work on the roof did so and now there's no more leak.
Bad news: there is also no water in our pipes.
Great news (in Mister's world): no water = no cooking = Chinese take-out

I have to hand it to him - if I had been home before he took the initiative to get the Chinese food, I probably would have chosen something else, so kudos to him for being slick and ordering it before I got home. I was chopsticks deep in broccoli when I heard the horrific sound of glugGLUGglugrumblerumble and then a slow dripping sound as the water restored itself to us and the toilet started filling up. This is one more thing I love about my husband: he is absolutely brilliant. He thinks of things other [normal] mere mortals would not think of - like flushing the toilet after we lost water so he would hear it filling up when we got it back. Well played, love.

So, today, the good news is that we still have water where we're supposed to and we don't have water where it doesn't belong. The bad news is that the snow taking up multiple parking spots still hasn't melted. The better news is that I rekindled a grand old flame tonight when I made my dear Isa's French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme. I had forgotten just how amazing that soup is, despite the three posts I've already devoted to that very subject. In addition to this very earthy, savory, and downright meaty vegan soup, I made two of the prettiest salads I think I've ever made - and I've been pretty impressed with some of my salads.
Mixed organic greens from Earthbound Farm, mixed organic sprouts (clover, onion, alfalfa), half of a clementine orange, red bell pepper, and kalamata olives. The greens were fresh tasting and varied in flavor and boldness, the sprouts were nutty in flavor and a little crunchier than I expected. The clementine is perfectly ripe and the olives are almost overpoweringly salty. Odd combination, but a good salad, all things considered.

would you like some seeds with that?

A little while back, I was singing the praises of Wawa. Wawa, for those of you who do not live in Pennsylvania, Delaware, parts of New Jersey, and possibly the most northeast part of Maryland, is a convenience store. It is actually a very popular convenience store in these parts, because it is generally much, much better than the best 7-11 or other such establishments. I would like to take a moment to share a list of all the awesome things about Wawa:

• there are normally at least 3 within a five-minute drive from anywhere
• they have really awesome coffee and an impressive selection of flavored non-dairy creamers
• they have a milkshake blender (I've never used it, but I've watched children and I think it must be the coolest thing in their day)
  
• they have "healthy" food, in the form of Luna bars and other such nonsense
• some locations have very low-priced but high-quality gas
• there is an impressive selection of hot food, even if most of it contains meat
• the Wawa where I went to college also carried individual-sized Pizza Hut pizzas
• they are open 24 hours
• their frozen cappuccinos are the only blended coffee drink (including Starbucks) that doesn't make me sick to my stomach
• they have a make-your-own sandwich bar (well, you choose your selections from a touchscreen computer and then a washed and gloved employee makes your sandwich)
• they have amazing soft pretzels (another big deal in the Philadelphia area)
• there is a truly impressive array of fresh prepared foods, such as wraps, hoagies, salads, fruit cups (I got sliced mango yesterday, but there's also grapes, sliced apples, and mixes), whole fruits, "protein platters" made up of an appropriately portioned multi-grain bagel, natural PB, a hardboiled egg, and a packet of almonds. The list goes on, but those are the things that stand out

Anyway, not too long ago, I extolled the virtues of my favorite Wawa feature: the build-a-salad feature. I fell in love at first bite with salads so magnificently constructed that they don't need dressing. They are also the perfect fit for my mid-winter fresh-raw cravings (I must be orthorexic!), which have officially begun, at almost exactly the same time as last year. Unfortunately, they were either a "limited time offer" or they were not as popular with everyone else. I went to a Wawa for lunch the other day and was utterly disappointed to find they did not have salads on their touchscreen order boxes, so I picked up a ready-to-go salad. It was just slightly better than awful - primarily the white, nutritionally useless parts of iceberg lettuce, some dried out "shredded" carrots, fair cherry tomatoes, "meh" diced bell peppers, and sorry looking chickpeas. There was also a terrifying sliced hardboiled egg that I removed upon opening it. Although this is how Wawa wants to represent it, it looked nothing like this:
It is the only prepared salad, though, that doesn't have meat on it. I don't understand the need to add meat to salad. Different strokes...

So, silly me, since I had never been to that particular Wawa before, I thought they just weren't offering that option. Yesterday, I had a hankering for a salad that wouldn't infect me with Swine Flu, so I went to my tried-and-true Wawa to get me a made-to-my-specifications salad. I was profoundly disappointed to find that the option had disappeared from the menu...no matter how many times I walked away from the touchscreen and came back (three times - the staff must have thought I was insane), so I grabbed the same garden salad from the prepared foods island and headed back to work.

If it's possible, this one was even more of a salad failure than the first one! I figure that to dice the bell peppers, they must have just thrown a whole one into a blender or something because I can't figure out how else there would be a 3:1 seed to pepper piece ratio. To put this in other words, my love affair with Wawa has been tainted.


Tonight, I made Curried Udon Noodle Stir-Fry from Veganomicon. I know I've made it before, but I'm too lazy to dig through my posts to find the link. It's fun making the curry roux, and it comes together faster and easier than most rouxes (?) I've made. It's a good dish and I enjoy the taste and texture of udon noodles, but the sauce needs just a little something more. I'm thinking "soy sauce" is that something, because this is my issue: the curry powder smells so good when it's cooking, but then it's somewhat bland when you taste it...it must need some kind of salty agent to enhance the flavors present in the scents.

Finally, since we went out for Valentine's day on Tuesday and had leftovers the night I was too pissy to cook (Monday?) this week's menu includes a few of last week's leftovers:

1. French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme from Veganomicon

2. Red Lentil Artichoke Stew from The Vegan Table

3. Potato Corn Chowder from The Accidental Vegan. I really pondered this one for a few minutes because I feel like it makes the week soup-heavy again. I decided to go ahead when I realized that soup season will actually end in a couple of months and remembered how good and thick and hearty this soup is.

4. Lo Mein also from The Accidental Vegan. Veggie Lo Mein was one of the first things I learned how to cook when I became a vegetarian and it was really ad hoc. This is the first time I've actually bothered with a recipe, so we'll see how that comes out.

5. Kedgeree also from The Accidental Vegan. This is actually a very common middle-eastern dish of brown rice and lentils (a complete protein) with herbs and spices. I haven't been a fan of it as a main dish because there are no vegetables involved, unless you count the herbs - I don't. With this recipe, Devra apparently feels my pain, because she has included dark leafy greens (kale, my new love), carrots, and...fungus. Mister, as I've mentioned, is not a fan of mushrooms. I solicited advice from some friends on a substitute that would incorporate the earthiness and meatiness of the mushrooms and the suggestion I fell in love with was olives. Brilliant!

tofu times two

Today was a suck, so we repeated last night's dinner, but that's okay because I never got to share last night! I made Two-Tofu Shepherd's Pie, my own creation. I took the best bits of every shepherd's pie recipe I've ever made and combined them into this tasty (and voluminous!) casserole. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

the tasty filling: smoked & baked tofu, spinach, carrots, corn, and green beans in a tomato roux with garlic and lentils
my "special recipe" home-made mashed potatoes, complete with my secret ingredient!
after baking (and carving away our first helpings...)
Mister's
Mine

I was so impressed with how the mashed potatoes could be so light and creamy, yet more or less hold the filling in place like glue. I think it's in the spreading technique - I used my hard plastic scraping spatula, intended for scraping down the sides of my food processor and I just take about 1/3 cup of potatoes at a time and smooth them over the filling.

I'll share the recipe with you with this note: this is labor-intensive and time consuming. It was our Valentine's dinner and I would definitely recommend keeping this in your weekend/special occasion file, because this is definitely too much work for a weeknight. It also results in a ton of pots-n-pans washing, but it's totally worth it - I was thrilled with how it came out.

Two-Tofu Shepherd's Pie
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 large cloves garlic, pressed
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground coriander*
black pepper to taste
1 c. chopped carrot (about 2 medium carrots)
1 c. frozen peas/green beans
1 c. frozen corn
1 c. frozen spinach
8 oz smoked tofu, cubed
8 oz baked tofu, cubed
1 cup dried lentils, cooked in 2 cups broth
14 oz tomato sauce
1/4 cup flour
3 lbs Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cubed into 1" pieces
1/3 c coconut milk OR 1/4 c unsweetened soymilk + 1 Tbsp coconut creamer
1/4 c canola oil
1 tsp sea salt

Place potatoes in a large pot and cover with water to 1" above potatoes. Cover and bring to a boil: boil 20 minutes, until tender. Drain well, return to pot and mash until creamy with coconut milk, oil, and salt. Cover to keep warm.
Preheat oven to 375.
Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet or saute pan. Saute garlic 1 minute, then add thyme, coriander, and black pepper. Add carrots, corn, peas, and spinach and stir well to combine. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, 5-10 minutes, until carrots are tender. Add tofu cubes and saute 2-3 more minutes. Mix tomato sauce with flour and add to skillet. Stir and cook until the sauce thickens, about 3 minutes. Stir in cooked lentils and any liquid that was not absorbed and mix well. Remove from heat.
Pour filling into 9x13" baking dish, top with mashed potatoes. Smooth top of the potatoes with a spatula or the back of an oiled spoon.
Bake 20 minutes.
Allow to sit for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

*apparently we're having a coriander shortage in Philadelphia. At Whole Foods, they stock three or four different brands of herbs and spices and there was not a single dram of ground coriander to be found. At Superfresh, they stock two: McCormicks and McCormicks Gourmet - there was ONE bottle of organic ground coriander, which I bought, but it was apparently the only bottle of coriander in Philadelphia :)