Vegetarian Caribbean recipes for Caribbean Food Week 2015

Why not try one of these delicious vegetarian Caribbean recipes, including jerk tofu and callaloo, spicy sweet potatoes and rice and peas. These recipes are also suitable for vegans.

When Grace Foods asked me if I’d like to create a recipe using some of their Caribbean products to mark Caribbean Food Week I jumped at the chance. Feeding my family with food from different cultures and exposing the children to different tastes and flavours is really important to me.

The products I received were a tin of callaloo, some jerk marinade, some chicken fry spices (which are actually vegetarian), a tin of coconut water and a jar of Encona hot Creole pepper sauce. In case you’re not familiar with it, callaloo is a green vegetable, very similar to spinach.

Although I’m the only vegetarian member of our family, I decided that this was a good opportunity to create a veggie meal for our family, using flavours that we might not usually eat. I made jerk tofu with callaloo, rice and peas and roasted sweet potatoes.

It turned out to be a really versatile meal.  We all loved the rice and peas. Baby S loved the sweet potato. R & R loved the jerk chicken. My husband and I loved the jerk tofu and callaloo – as well as the rice and sweet potato. I didn’t give baby S any of the food with jerk marinade on as it contains salt and I’m not sure whether he’s ready for chilli yet – he’s only 7 months old after all. We all really enjoyed eating something different and I’ll definitely be making a meal like this again.

The coconut water drink was a bit too sweet for my taste. The kids enjoyed having the chance to try a drink in a can! My husband has been enjoying the hot pepper sauce, and even added it to the jerk tofu – which were plenty hot enough for the rest of us!

Here are the recipes for this vegetarian Caribbean meal if you’d like to give it a try.

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Vegetarian Caribbean recipes

Why not try one of these delicious vegetarian Caribbean recipes, including jerk tofu and callaloo, spicy sweet potatoes and rice and peas.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Caribbean

Keyword vegetarian caribbean recipes

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Marinating time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 4

Author Mandy Mazliah

Ingredients

For the jerk tofu and callaloo

• Sunflower oil for greasing
• 400 g block of tofu
• 1 tbsp Dunn's River jerk marinade
• 540 g tin of callaloo rinsed (to remove salt)

For the sweet potatoes

• 1 kg sweet potatoes
• 2 tbsp allspice
• chilli optional, to taste.
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil

For the rice and peas

• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic peeled and finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 200 g basmati rice
• 400 g can of coconut milk
• 300 ml water
• 2 400g tins of kidney beans or similar, I used 1 tin of kidney beans and one of borlotti beans

Instructions

For the jerk tofu and callaloo

1. Lightly grease a roasting dish with sunflower oil. Press as much of the liquid out of the tofu by covering with kitchen towel and pressing down on it with a heavy plate or book. Cut into one inch squares and add to the roasting dish with the marinade. Stir well so that all the tofu is coated. Leave for at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 hours in the fridge.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C(fan)/220°C/gas mark 7. Roast for 30 minutes, stirring halfway. Add a little more oil if it starts to look dry. Stir though the callaloo and put back in the oven for 5-10 minutes to heat through.

For the sweet potatoes

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C(fan)/220°C/gas mark 7. Peel and chop the sweet potato into bite-sized pieces. Place all the ingredients together in a large roasting dish, mix well and roast for around 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft.

For the rice and peas

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion, stir well and cook until the onion is soft. 

2. Stir in the thyme, garlic and allspice and cook for a further minute. 

3. Add the rice, coconut milk and water. Stir, then bring to the boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 12 minutes. 

4. Stir in the beans, then cover and leave for 5 minutes.

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Disclaimer: We were sent these products by Grace Foods in order to give our opinion on them and to create a recipe for Caribbean Food Week. We didn’t receive any payment for this post.

I am linking this post up to the following blog challenges:

Meat Free Mondays over at Tinned Tomatoes.