I’ve been wanting to make the zucchini and tomato fritters I found in my vegan cookbook for a while. Even for omnivores, the Veganomicon cookbook is incredible. I’ve gotten biscotti, cakes, side dishes, etc out of there and so long as I “forget” to mention that they are vegan everyone loves them. The zucchini and tomato fritters were something I stumbled across, they sounded great, so I tried them – slightly altered as usual, but it worked.

I had some fresh zucchini and two beautiful tomatoes left, so I decided on this dish. I grated the zucchini and peeled the tomatoes then chopped them. No precision here, just used what I had.

The base was a little harder. I took one package of firm tofu, drain it and chopped it up. Into the food processor it went with three cloves of garlic, about a quarter cup almonds, a hand full of panko breadcrumbs, the juice of half a lemon, some fresh herbs from the garden (in this case dill, oregano and mint) and salt, pepper, tomato paste. The pepper was a hot blend Bob likes.

I figured a little heat would make up for the tofu. Once this was blended

I folded in the zucchini and the tomatoes. Because I forgot I was working late Monday, the mixture sat in the fridge, covered, for two days, but it was it was fine.

Today I heated a frying pan, added olive oil and fried tablespoons of the mixture that I coated in more panko. They are delicate, but if you just leave them and only flip once, they seem to come out ok.

I made these with panko crusted chicken with the same pepper blend since I just wasn’t 100% certain about them.

Bob really liked them and asked me to make them again and I have to say, I was happy with them – lots of flavor and a good texture with the tomato chunks and the crunch of the breadcrumbs. It was a really great side that I could turn into a main dish pretty easily.

All in all a success and not too bad for a Tuesday night!