Ben's Special Tofu, adapted

David's son Ben makes a dish he calles Ben's Special Tofu. He stir-fries soft tofu with a variety of mushrooms and tops it with hoisin sauce. At some point we made that dish, though I'm not sure I posted it here.

Tonight, David is out of town and I had a plethora of fresh spinach grown right here in the North Country to eat up. Ben has always said that his tofu dish could use some veggies. This was great!

I made a sauce using
2 T sherry
2 T soy sauce
2 T sesame oil
2 T hot sauce
2 T hoisin sauce
I put some of the sauce over the tofu and let it marinate for about 10 minutes (longer would have been better).

Then, I chopped up bunches of mushrooms and an onion, and stir fried them until they were well-cooked. I took the tofu out of the marinade and added it to the pan. I returned the marinade from the tofu to the bowl with the rest of the sauce and added 1 t of cornstarch to thicken it when it hit the heat. (You could never do this if you were marinating meat, but with tofu there's no danger of disease.)

I trimmed the spinach and cut off the tough ends. When everything else was cooked, I added the spinach and cooked just long enough for it to combine with the other ingredients. I poured the sauce over the top, stirred a couple of times, and then shut off the heat. I served this over quinoa and have enough left-overs for a couple nights of being home alone!

Thai Green Curry with Tofu

David and I hosted my mom for a visit last weekend. Saturday night, we invited a friend to dinner for some Thai tofu and Five Crowns.

This was one of those "kitchen sink" dinners where I just kept popping stuff in.

Put together a stir fry of your favorites. Some advice about the best way to do this is here.

For the green curry sauce, I combined the following in a saucepan over low/medium heat, stirring until it was well mixed. I let it simmer for a while and then took it off the heat until it was time to pour it over the stir-fry.

1 can coconut milk
roughly 2T green curry paste (use more if you like spice, less if you don't)
the juice of two limes
roughly 2 T fish sauce
a heaping teaspoon of the following - gilgal (it's a root much like ginger, which you can buy preserved), kaffir lime leaves, cilantro, chopped lemongrass.
about 1/2 T brown sugar

We served the dish over a crispy rice cake.

Alas, there are no pictures.

The Pepper Monkey on a Rice Noodle Cake

Life has felt very busy since David and I returned from Houston. Several nights, we've simply eaten at the bottom of the hill at our favorite Milan eatery, The Village Deli and General Store.

However, since I [almost] always snap a pick of what I cook these days, I have evidence that I cooked more than I thought I did!

This meal is comprised of two different recipes. David said it was his favorite meal since the end of Lent.

The Pepper Monkey from V Cuisine: The Art of Vegan Cooking by Angeline Lindardis (Whitecap, 2007)
You could call this Tofu au Poivre, it is in fact a pepper monkey.

14 oz tofu
2 T olive oil
3 T balsamic vinegar
4 T dark soy sauce
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion powder
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground sage
freshly cracked pepper
1 c dry red wine
1 large onion cut into quarters
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
1 c parsley
2 c crimini mushrooms, halved
1 red pepper, cut into rings
1 green pepper, cut into rings
coarse sea salt
olive oil

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 F.
2. Oil a 13x9 casserole dish.
3. Slice to tofu into rectangles about 1/2 inch thick. Set them into the oiled pan, keeping them all flat if possible.
4. Mix together olive oil, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin and sage. Pour over tofu, cover with plastic wrap, let sit for 20 minutes.
5. Uncover tofu. Coat each side with a layer of freshly ground pepper, return to pan.
6. Pour wine into pan. Add veggies, beginning with onion.
7. Cover with foil, bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and vegetables.
8. Put broiler on high, leave pan in middle of oven. Cook on one side 4-5 minutes, then flip.

Some notes:
I didn't read the recipe super carefully, and so I set the tofu aside after coating with pepper, put in all the veggies and topped them with tofu. This caused me to climate the broiling step. We thought it was perfect as prepared.
Also, we had no parsley and no peppers of any kind and the whole thing tasted great.
The pan sauce was terrific atop the noodle cake!

The timing is just about right to cook the noodle cake while the tofu bakes. You might give the tofu a five minute head start.

Crisp-Fried Noodle Cake - another great recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman (Wiley, 2007)

noodles (the recipe suggests 12 oz of fresh Chinese egg noodles or 8 oz of any dry long noodles or pasta - we used 14 oz of rice noodles)
1 T soy sauce
1 t dark sesame oil
1/2 c chopped scallions or chives
1/4 neutral oil (I used canola)

1. Prep the noodles as the package suggests. Drain and rinse. Set aside. If you wait any length of time, leave the noodles soaking in cold water, otherwise they get sticky (says the voice of experience!).
2. Just before cooking drain (if you haven't already) and then toss the noodles with the sesame oil, soy sauce, and scallions.
3. Put 3 T of oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. When hot, add the noodles. Let cook undisturbed until brown and crisp on the bottom. This takes about 15 minutes. Resist looking as much as you can!
4. Use a large spatula to flip the noodles, first adding remaining oil to pan. Brown on the other side. Slide onto a plate. Sprinkle with a bit of additional sesame oil (you might skip this step, we found it plenty oily enough!) and soy sauce. Cut into pieces and serve.

Some notes:
1. This does not re-heat well. So serve when you have company or are very hungry. Our next-day leftovers were kind of chewy and blah.
2. The flipping is a bit dangerous. We actually did this twice and the second time put a pizza stone onto the fry pan, flipped that over, then re-oiled the pan and slid the cake from the pizza stone.
3. Flipping the noodle cake takes a bit of getting used to - be prepared for bits of noodle all over your stove! :)

Lenten Discipline: The Final Report

I know we just celebrated the Third Sunday of Easter, but such is the life of a priest. I'm only now getting the chance to really think through and check in on our Lenten Discipline.

I think we were about two weeks into Lent when David asked me, quite seriously, "Do we have to go back?" After I laughed about the steaks in our freezer, I replied simply, "No." We've loved experimenting with new recipes, cooking together, and trying new foods. And, we've loved having our food consumption make a a smaller impact both on the planet and our budget.

Neither of us is a budgeting whiz! So, I can't say beyond the shadow of a doubt that we saved X dollars through our eating choices. However, since one tub of tofu used to produce two portions, and now it produces six portions, I think I can state with certainty that we did save money.

So, what we've decided to do is to choose to eat less meat. We won't throw away the meat in our freezer. We'll enjoy the occasional bacon (as we did this morning). When we are out, we'll eat as we please. However, most of the meals we cook for ourselves will be vegan/vegetarian.

I also have to share that there were health benefits to our choices, as well. We certainly didn't take on this Lenten discipline to lose weight. But, I did! About 10 pounds worth. So, if a healthier lifestyle is something you are looking for, consider eating less meat!

I've really appreciated the positive response these posts have generated. So, I'll continue to post recipes and pictures as I am able. Keep those comments coming - let me know what you've tried and liked.

Finally, since I made it again last night, here's the Thai Tofu Soup from the last post!

The Last Lenten Recipe: Thai Curry Vegetable and Tofu Soup

OK. I'll admit it. I'm kind of out-of-control when it comes to cookbooks, recipes, cooking magazines, etc. On Holy Saturday, I ducked into the store to get one thing - and found this magazine on display by the register: Real Simple - Easy, Delicious Home Cooking, Spring/Summer 2012. Generally, I find that things in Real Simple are often neither. But, as I waited in the long line and perused the recipes, I was totally hooked. So, into the bag it went! That very night, I made Thai Curry Vegetable and Tofu Soup and served it over white rice before we headed off to the Easter Vigil. Wow!

Thai Curry Vegetable and Tofu Soup
2 c low sodium vegetable broth
1 can coconut milk
1 T red curry paste (I only had green, and it was fine)
1 t grated fresh ginger
kosher salt to taste
1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps thinly sliced (no shiitakes, only regular old mushrooms, again this substitution was fine)
1/4 pound green beans, trimmed and halved (no green beans, only snap peas, again fine)
2 carrots, halved lengthwise and sliced crosswise
14 oz extra-firm tofu, drained, pressed, and cut into cubes
1/4 pound snow peas (skipped these)
2 T fresh lime juice
1/4 c torn fresh basil leaves
Asian chile garlic sauce for serving

1. In a large sauce pan, whisk together the broth, coconut milk, curry paste, ginger and 1 t salt. Bring to a boil.
2. Add mushrooms, green beans and carrots. Simmer until just tender - 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Add tofu and snow peas, simmer until snow peas are bright green, about 1 minute more.
4. Stir in lime juice, sprinkle with basil leaves, and serve with chili-garlic sauce.

I didn't have lime juice, basil,or chile garlic sauce. I found the soup a tiny bit flat and so instead added some soy sauce, fish sauce, and about 1 t of sugar. I served topped with crushed red pepper flakes.

April 1, 2012: Stir-fried Rice Noodles with Quick-Braised Vegetables, Thai Style

This keeper is adapted from a recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food, John Wiley & Sons, 2007.  He gives some great suggestions for vegetables to use, but I just used what we had on hand. Prepping all the veggies takes a bit of time, but the whole thing comes together quickly after that.

1/3 package rice noodles, prepared according to package directions, rinsed in cold water, and drained
3 T oil (I always use olive)
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 chile, chopped (or you could use 2 dried chiles, or 1 t chile paste, or eliminate the chiles all together if you aren't a spice fan)
lime leaves or lime zest (we didn't have any, so I skipped this - it would have deepened the flavor, for sure)
a quantity of fresh vegetables, chopped into bite-sized pieces (we used mushrooms, broccoli, and snap peas - and we pressed 1/3 of a package of tofu and added it in with the mushrooms)
1 can coconut milk
3 T fish sauce - this is a place where I go ahead and use the real thing, not a vegan alternative. You can sub soy sauce or fish-less fish sauce if you prefer.
salt and pepper
lime wedges for serving

1. Put the oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat. Sauté the garlic and onions for about 5 minutes until soft.
2. Stir in chiles and lime leaves.
3. Add vegetables - put in the longest cooking first, followed by the shorter cooking ones. Sauté, stirring frequently. Depending on the veggies you use, this could take 5-15 minutes.
4. When the veggies are nearly done, add the rice noodles and sauté very briefly, to heat through.
5. Stir in the coconut milk and simmer until thickened, then add fish sauce, salt and pepper.
6. Serve hot with lime wedges.

Taste this before you serve it. You may want to adjust spices with more fish sauce, or chile sauce, or by adding a bit of sugar. Trust your own palate and what you like as you finish this up.

March 14: Iron Chef - Milan (aka, another Tofu Stir Fry)

After making many stir fries from the Wok Fast cookbook, I decided to go it on my own and see what I could come up with. So, based on what we had in the fridge and in the cupboard, here's my own version of a stir fry sauce. It was pretty good!

1/4 c vegetable stock
1/4 c cooking sherry
1/4 c sesame oil
1 T soy sauce
1 clove garlic
1 T chopped ginger
1 t corn starch

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl, and when the stir fry is nearly done, add to the pan. Cook another minute or two and the sauce will thicken.

March 7: Marinated Tofu and Roasted Veggies

This winter, we became completely addicted to roasting vegetables. It's pretty fast and super flavorful. This whole dinner was on the table in about 35 minutes from start to finish. If you can let the tofu press for a couple of hours, that's great, but any time at all helps the marinade soak in.

Marinated Tofu
about 5 oz of tofu, pressed, and cut into slices (mine were about the size of a half-slice of regular bread, and just a tad thinner) - I got four slices out of 5 oz.
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 dry cooking wine or cooking sherry
about 1 T olive oil
1 clove chopped garlic
a nickel sized slice of ginger, chopped
a sprinkle of dried pepper flakes

1. Mix the marinade ingredients together.
2. Soak the tofu in the marinade, turning periodically. The longer you soak, the deeper the flavors.
3. Fry over medium high heat until the outside gets a bit crispy. Turn so that both sides get cooked. You can also braise the tofu in the marinade if you prefer.

Roasted Vegetables
You can roast just about anything, and frankly it's a bit like stir-frying, in that the harder the veggie, the longer you roast. If you are going to roast veggies together, you don't want to mix hard ones and soft ones - or you'll have some burned to a crisp and some raw. Tonight's collection was:
carrots
parsnips
cauliflower
1. Chop the veggies into bite-sized pieces.
2. Put them in a bowl and top with olive oil then mix well.
3. Add spices (you could use salt and pepper, garlic powder, or make a mix of your favorite spices) - in this one I used zatar, a Middle Eastern spice mix.
4. Roast at 450 degrees.
5. The veggies are done when they begin to get brown on the outside. These took about 12 minutes.

Tofu Stir Fry Basics

Looking over the pictures from the last few weeks, I can see that I've made a whole bunch of tofu stir fries. I'll do posts with the specifics of the sauces, but there are some basics to how to stir fry.

You really want to start by pressing the tofu.  You can press the tofu between two plates, or under a bowl with some water in it.  However you do it, if you get some of the moisture out, it will absorb more flavor.  At one point, David bought us a lovely little tofu press on amazon.com.  It's not super cheap, but I'd sent more bowls of water crashing onto the kitchen floor than I care to count!  So, for us this little gizmo was worth the $35 bucks.

Here's a stir fry basic recipe:

Press about 5 oz of tofu (this is a third of the cube that you get a normal size pack of tofu, and is a perfect amount for 2 average adults)

1 small onion, chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, depending on your preferences

1-2 T oil, I use olive for everything. Others prefer canola or peanut.

a variety of vegetables - you really can stir fry almost anything. We love - carrots, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, pea pods, spinach, and peppers. Use what you love - leave out what you don't.

Chop the veggies into roughly bite-sized pieces, and as you chop them, sort them by hardness - carrots and brussels sprouts are super hard, broccoli, asparagus, are medium, pea pods and bean sprouts are pretty soft. Greens go last. Mushrooms are the exception. They are soft, but I like them well cooked. You want about 4 cups of chopped veggies for two people for supper.

Stir fry in this order:

1. Onions and garlic: 2-3 minutes

2. Tofu: 5 minutes or so

3. Mushrooms: can add with the tofu

4. Hard veggies: 5 minutes

5. Medium veggies: 3-5 minutes

6. Soft veggies: 2-3 minutes

7. Just before taking off the heat, throw in any greens like spinach: 1 minute or less

You know that you are done when green vegetables turn BRIGHT green. If you stop too soon they are too hard.  If you stop too late, they are squashy. You'll make a few mistakes at the start, but keep going. You can have a super inexpensive and scrumptious dinner on the table in 20-30 minutes, 

Top with some kind of sauce. You can be minimalist and just add a bit of soy. Or, in some following posts, I'll share some ideas.

Leftovers Night: "Really Risqué" Fried Rice with Tofu

          Last night's supper was inspired by two things.  First, and foremost, we had leftovers that needed to be eaten or pitched.
          While not officially part of our Lenten discipline (though it probably should be) we are also trying to be more organized about what we'll actually eat.  With two people working it's easy to imagine that we will have time to cook, and then not have that time, and wind up throwing out food.  So, using leftovers creatively is a goal here.
          The other inspiration was my memory of how much we both loved earlier explorations of this dish!  This is a great recipe if you are new to stir-frying or new to wok cooking.  It's very easy and the flavors are wonderful.

Really Risqué Fried Rice (with Tofu) [adapted from Wok Fast by Hugh Carpenter and Teri Sandison, Ten Speed Press, (c) 2002.]
4 c cold cooked rice (white or brown)
1/2 c pine nuts
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
3 scallions (didn't have any, so used 1 regular onion, chopped)
3 T oil (I used olive, my standard go-to)
1/2 c currants (didn't have any, forgot to add raisins!)
some tofu - this isn't in the original recipe, but I was looking to add some protein and make this a one dish supper, so I diced some leftover tofu into small squares, and tossed it in with the onions and peppers

"Really Risqué" Sauce (not sure why they call it this - it's not spicy or anything!)
1/4 c dry sherry
1/4 c tomato sauce (I had some home-made tomato paste to use up, so used that - it gave a slightly stronger than expected tomato flavor, but tasted good)
3 T oyster sauce
1 T hoisin sauce
1 T dark sesame oil (I only had regular and it was fine)
2 t cornstarch
1/2 t freshly ground pepper

1. Make the sauce - mix all of the ingredients together in a small bowl.
2. Put the cold rice in a ziploc bag and break up all of the clumpy bits.
3. Toast the pine nuts in a skillet until golden brown.
4. Stir fry your chopped veggies and tofu until cooked, but still firm.
5. Add the rice - cook until heated through.
6. Add the sauce - cook until hot.
7. Toss in the pine nuts just before serving.

Friday, February 24: Marinated tofu, pan roasted brussels sprouts, rice

David and I decided we would dedicate as much of today as we could to working on our taxes.  On some Fridays, I cook something more involved, just because I can.  Today, taxes got our attention, so I made a simple supper.  Tonight's dishes came (mostly) out of my own head.  I would, however, be remiss not to thank my friend Lynne, who first introduced me to the idea of pressing and marinating tofu.

Lynne's tofu - adapted
roughly 7oz tofu, pressed to remove most of the liquid, cut into thin slices
1/4 c soy sauce
1/4 cooking sherry
about 1/8 cup olive oil
1 T ginger, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
about 1 t red pepper flakes
1. Mix together the marinade ingredients.
2. Marinate the tofu.  I kept mine in a tupperware on the counter all day and periodically turned it over, so that both sides of the tofu were soaked in the marinade.
3. Spray a non-stick skillet with cooking spray (or you could use olive oil).  Cook the tofu over medium high heat, flipping it once.  You want it to brown and develop a light crust.
4. I turned the marinade into a sauce - you couldn't get away with doing this if you marinated meat but you can with tofu.  Add a bit more soy and sherry to the marinade.  Place in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat.  Add 1t cornstarch, dissolved in some cool water.  Stir until thick.  Use to top the tofu and the rice.

Pan Roasted Brussels Sprouts
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped or sliced
8 brussels sprouts, washed, ends trimmed off, and loose leaves removed
1/8 cup olive oil
1. Slice the brussels sprouts in half (top to bottom).
2. Heat the oil in a pan, over medium heat.  Add garlic.
3. Place the brussels sprouts in the pan, cut side down.  Cover the pan with a lid.  Roast until the cut sides are dark brown and the sprouts are cooked through.  Probably about 12 minutes.

We served the tofu and brussels sprouts with a side of white rice topped with the soy-sherry sauce.