What Do You Really Want? + Whole-Food Plant-Based Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich

Close your eyes and picture in your head what you really, really, really want for yourself.

Hold this for a couple of minutes and then come back to me.

Picture it. Smell it. Taste it. Touch it with your imagination. Make love to it with your brain. Bathe in it. Dance with it. Absorb yourself in it. And then come up for air.

Imagine it’s yours.

It doesn’t matter if it seems out of reach or impossible or far fetched.
It’s not.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know exactly how to get there.
Pay attention and life will show you.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve tried and failed in the past.
Your past attempts have brought you to this very moment.

You’re not too old.
You’re not too far gone.
You’re not too depressed.
You’re not too fucked up.
You’re not too broke.
You’re not past the point of no return.

If you can see it…if you can picture it…if you light up when you think about it…

Then my love, it’s yours for the taking and do not let anyone (including yourself) tell you differently.

It’s already yours. All you have to do is connect the dots and claim it.

So put on your big person panties, pull up your boots and strap in for the ride.

At times it will be challenging and hard and shitty and scary.

That’s okay. Do it anyway.

Even when you want to give up. Even when you convincingly tell yourself that you should throw in the towel. Even if you stumble and fall.

All of the reasons you tell yourself you can’t are merely excuses. When they come up, tune them out. Tell them to fuck off. Choose not to believe them. And carry on.

You might complain. You might bitch. You might throw a fit. You might be uncomfortable.

Keep going and take comfort in the fact that we live in a constant state of impermanence. No feeling lasts forever, good or bad, so embrace the suck and ride it out until it sucks less. It will morph. It will change.

You’ll be okay.

You’ll be MORE than okay.

You are 100% capable and 100% worthy of scrumptious happiness, joyous adventure, and cozy serenity. So decide to live the life of your dreams, shut down the excuses and make that shit happen.

Because you can have anything you want.

If you’re ready to break up with crappy food and start treating your body like the luscious temple that it is, take my hand – I’ve got you.

I’ll give you all of the tools and support that you need to fuel your beautiful bod with ridiculously yummy plant food and get healthy and glowing from the inside out.

Bounce with me over here and let’s do this. Take a test drive of our free plant fueled meal plan trial.

PS – Expect to feel like a complete badass when you unload your grocery cart from now on. I guarantee that your groceries will be the healthiest that your check out person will see all week, every week!

Today’s recipe is an explosion of flavor and satisfying texture in your mouth.

Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich - Whole-Food Plant-Based

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Author: Molly Patrick of Clean Food Dirty Girl

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Ingredients

• ▢ Baked Tofu recipe below
• ▢ Slaw recipe below
• ▢ Mayo recipe in link below
• ▢ Sprouted wheat hot dog bun Food For Life is my fave, toasted

For the Baked Tofu

• ▢ 1 package tofu 14oz / 397g, extra firm - water packed
• ▢ Marinade
• ▢ 3 garlic cloves minced
• ▢ 1 teaspoon peeled and chopped ginger
• ▢ 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• ▢ 1 tablespoon Coconut Aminos
• ▢ 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• ▢ 1 tablespoon water

For the Slaw

• ▢ 2 cups sliced red cabbage 135g
• ▢ 1 cup grated carrot 80g
• ▢ ½ cup thinly sliced red onion 45g
• ▢ 1 heaping tablespoon chopped fresh basil
• ▢ 1 heaping tablespoon chopped cilantro
• ▢ 2 tablespoons Coconut Aminos
• ▢ 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
• ▢ Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Make the Baked Tofu

• Take the block of tofu out of the package and rinse it with water. Next you want to extract as much liquid out of the tofu as possible. If you don’t have a tofu press, you can easily do this by using a pie pan and some plates. Place the block of tofu into a pie pan and carefully stack some plates on top. Make sure the plates are heavy enough to press liquid out of the tofu as it sits. Let it sit like this for about 15 minutes. When most of the liquid has been extracted, discard the liquid and place the tofu on a cutting board.
• Cut the tofu into thin slabs. You can make them any size in length you want, just make sure they are at least 1/2 inch or so thick. You should be able to get about 9 pieces out of one package of tofu.
• Make the marinade by placing all the marinade ingredients into a small bowl and whisking with a fork to combine (garlic, ginger, soy sauce, Coconut Aminos, rice vinegar and water).
• Arrange the pieces of tofu in the same pie pan that you used to extract the water, and pour the marinade over the tofu (make sure all of the water is out of the pie pan first). Allow the tofu to marinate for at least 10 minutes, turning it over at least once so that each side soaks up some marinade.
• While the tofu is marinating, preheat the oven to 350° (175°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. When the tofu is done marinating, place each piece in a single layer on the parchment covered baking sheet and pour the remaining marinade on top.
• Bake for 15 minutes, flip over each slab of tofu and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
• You will have more baked tofu than you will need for this recipe. This is awesome because you will want to eat it SO much of it.

Make the Slaw

• Use the slicing blade on your food processor to slice the cabbage, carrot and onion.
• Place the sliced veggies into a large mixing bowl and add the basil, cilantro, Coconut Aminos and rice vinegar. Stir until all of the ingredients are combined and add salt and pepper to taste.

Now it’s time to assemble this mofo!

• Toast a sprouted hotdog bun and slather both sides with mayo.
• Add two or three pieces of tofu to the bun and top the whole thing with a generous amount of slaw.
• Now all you have to do is devour!

Notes

Click here for Plant Based Mayo recipe.

Wishing you a happy week. May it be filled with taking steps to fulfill your desires, even if they feel wobbly.

Xo
Molly

Food photography by Christine June