Grilled Tofu and Veggies

My heart goes out to the millions of people affected by Hurricane Helene. If you feel the same, ask yourself: Are you doing what you can to curb the global warming that is making bad weather more severe and frequent?

As I see it, minimizing my consumption of animal-based foods is an important way to fight climate change, because animal agriculture is a significant source of potent methane emissions that are fueling global warming. 

The irony is that minimizing meat isn't some heroic move. Far from it! For example, I assure you that there was no sacrifice involved in serving "Marinated Grilled Vegetables" and "Grilled Tofu" (both NYT Cooking) at a very enjoyable twilight dinner on my patio recently. Both were easy and tasty vegan dishes that I served with rice.

My vegetables were mushrooms, broccolini, thin carrot pieces, brussels sprouts, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini. (All were good choices save for the cherry tomatoes, which rolled right off the darned grill.) I recommend removing the veggies from the marinade before serving and/or storing them, and note that the recipe does unfortunately leave you with a ton of oily marinade to discard somehow. 

No notes on the excellent tofu, the remainders of which went into my freezer and reemerged just yesterday to accompany a colorful and satisfying vegetarian fried rice.

Thanks to climate change, more and more of us have dismaying tales of scary weather to share, but imagine how much worse it is in poorer places, like Nepal, which also experienced deadly flooding and landslides this past weekend. I feel a particular responsibility to act to mitigate the danger to people who cannot afford defenses against severe weather. 

There are so many ways that we, as individuals, can be helpful against climate change. In addition to prioritizing plant-based foods, for example, we can opt to walk instead of drive for short trips, air-dry some of our laundry, and reuse and repurpose items rather than buying new.

We can take transit instead of driving! My backup dancer and I took Amtrak to Washington DC this weekend to meet up with my sister, and we zipped all over town on the Metro, from museums to restaurants (shout-out to the marvelous gluten-free Sweet Crimes bakery) to a Nationals baseball game.