Barbecue Tofu and Corn Salad

I'm not a huge fan of salads in general, and I rarely make them because it takes some effort to have every ingredient in the house and lettuce bores me. I've been buying more cartons of organic greens, however, and salads are a good way to use them up! I've moved beyond baby spinach to arugula, baby kale, and the lovely blends (Zen Blend is particularly good) that EarthBound Farms offers. This Barbecue Tofu and Corn Salad is a nice hearty dinner and it's quite versatile, which is always handy!

The first thing to do is fry tofu in BBQ sauce. We had mango curry BBQ sauce, which was a little sweet but had a nice kick. I also sometimes fry the tofu brushed with honey instead of sauce, which is quite delicious and makes the tofu a little crunchy. Then, in a large bowl, throw in the rest of the ingredients! This is the part I like about salads. I added mixed greens and arugula, 1/2 pint of halved cherry tomatoes, one can of mixed beans, 1 cup (thawed) corn, about 1/4 of a red onion, sliced, and some sliced red pepper.

The recipe calls for a more complicated citrus dressing, which is pureed. I don't bother with this. I mixed olive oil, lemon juice, a little sriracha, and one grated garlic clove. And lots of cilantro mixed in! The salad was quite good, very filling, but had one problem - it was so oniony! I only put a little red onion in but we ended up picking out most of it because it was overpowering. Maybe my slices were too big, or I should pickle it first in lemon juice, or I've heard soaking in ice water also helps tame them. Once the onion problem was under control the salad was quite good, but readers will know I love anything with cilantro in it. Even salad.

Tofu and Dumplings

I was flipping through Canadian Living magazine (yes, I am a middle-aged woman on the inside...) when I come across this Chicken and Dumplings recipe. I liked it for two reasons. 1) I had been eating a lot of Asian-flavoured things, Thai, Indian, etc and I liked the idea of something very homey, like Thanksgiving dinner and 2) it involved minimum work because the 'dumplings' were actually just gnocchi. Amazing.

Well, first things first, I skipped the chicken and made tofu instead. It's all bland protein anyway! So I fried up one package and set it aside. Then I put some butter in the pan and added the veggies in: 3 small carrots, 1 small onion, and 1 large parsnip. I skipped the celery but I'm sure it would be tasty. Then I stirred in 2 garlic cloves, 2 Tbsp flour to thicken things up and 1/2 tsp dried thyme, which smelled amazing and so like Thanksgiving.

I added in 2 cups chicken stock and 1 cup of water, brought it to a boil, and cooked the veggies for about 10 minutes. Then the fun part, throwing in the tofu, a package of gnocchi and some peas. Good thing too, because without the carrots and peas it wouldn't have been very visually appealing - so many white foods! My only complaint was that it was a little bland, so salt was needed, and a little spice would have been nice, like paprika.

Of course this Sunday dinner-style meal is probably meant to be shared with friends and family - alas, I ate it all by myself on a night in. Maybe I shouldn't have - alone, I ate about three servings at once. It was that irresistible. It was like a chicken pot pie filling - pure comfort food. I will definitely make this again, multiple times. Super easy and delicious and if you ignore the large amount of carbohydrates, sorta healthy? Right?

Better Butter Tofu

Happy Boxing Day!

Now let me start this post by warning you that this recipe is trying to be a 'healthier' butter chicken (or in my case, tofu) - but I wouldn't tell anyone to make it if you were actually craving rich, restaurant-style butter chicken. Having said that, it's a tasty, easy Indian-flavoured dinner. The recipe comes courtesy of Greta and Janet Podleski of Looney Spoons and Eat, Shrink and Be Merry fame.

The ladies first call for marinating chicken thighs in PC Tandoori sauce and baking them. I instead fried up some tofu with some vindaloo curry paste I have in the fridge (those jars last a long time and do go on sale occasionally). Hey, Indian flavour is Indian flavour, right? I then added (real!) butter to the pan with some oil, 1 large onion and 3 garlic cloves. My spice mix was mostly the same as listed in the recipe, omitting turmeric (just don't have any) and replacing the fresh ginger with 2 tsp dried ginger.

I added in the diced tomatoes, 1 cup only of stock, and 1 tsp molasses instead of brown sugar. After simmering, I skipped the part where they blend half of the sauce - if I had an immersion blender, I would, because I'm sure it makes it much creamier, but I couldn't be bothered to dirty my blender. I also threw in some extra veggies - carrots and cauliflower - and put the tofu back in.

Some delicious ingredients go in next - sour cream, and a Tbsp of peanut butter. No cilantro this time, but if I had some I would add way more than 1 Tbsp! I just threw some green onions on top.

The result was more like a chunky, peanuty Indian stew, since I didn't eat it over rice - just inhaled a bowl of it. But I could see if you blended half of it and ate a more manageable portion over rice, it would be like butter chicken/tofu. Either way it was damn good.

Cold Rolls

Pssst... here's a secret: Sometimes I don't feel like cooking! Yes, it's true. Sometimes when I get home late from work, mostly on the days when Mike's working late, I make a very simple dinner for myself: cold rolls, aka fresh rolls. While I often think of them just as vehicles to eat large amounts of peanut butter and sriracha hot sauce, they are healthy (well, as long as sodium's okay!), easy, versatile and fast. I eat them pretty much every week.

For protein I usually go for tofu, and if I'm smart the night before, I'll cut some up and place them in a 'marinade' of lemon juice and pepper. It makes the tofu a little tangy, and really good. Alternately I use those little flavoured tuna cans (I buy them on sale, and man are they ever convenient) in thai chili flavour, or lemon pepper, or peanut satay. Whoever thought of those is a marketing genius. I've also used cold chicken on the rare occasion we buy rotisserie chickens.

Next up are the veggies: usually chopped bell peppers, and matchstick carrots and cucumbers. Bean sprouts if I'm feeling fancy (and can finish a whole bag in two days before they turn slimy). Cilantro is delicious but I rarely buy it just for rolls. And I always add dabs of (natural) peanut butter. Then it's time to roll! The rice paper package says to soak towels and place them between the papers (blah blah blah) but really you can just run the paper under the tap and let it sit for a minute while you assemble the roll. They'll become sticky and malleable.

Assemble, cut into halves, eat while dipping into hot sauce. Delish! While it's not the healthiest dinner (the rice papers are full of salt, as is my beloved sriracha) I figure the large amount of raw veggies balances everything out.

This is my go-to dinner when Mike works nights, which means I also eat it while watching my guilty pleasure TV shows. I happily chomp down while sitting at my laptop with Gossip Girl, Glee and Grey's Anatomy. Happy times.

Tofu Stir-Fry with Rice Cakes

The hubs and I decided to snag a table at Mission Chinese Food, a hipster restaurant surrounded by Spanish markets and pawn shops, while we were visiting San Francisco back in September. As loyal (library) readers of Bon Appetit, we had already read about the rock star chef and knew the magazine named it one of the best new restaurants in the US in 2011. We enjoyed it but weren't overly impressed, but we were very intrigued by the Thrice Cooked Bacon dish, featuring tofu skins, bitter melon and Shanghainese rice cakes, which looked like water chestnuts but were gelatinous rice products of some sort... so we did some research and went in search of them in Chinatown.

Success! Turns out they come dried, so first we had to soak them overnight. The package did not give a specific soaking time, so we guessed a little. They were still firm once dinner time rolled around so we boiled them for a couple minutes to soften them up. They were just as we remembered - very gelatinous but strangely good.

The rest of the stir-fry was pretty straightforward. First we fried up 2/3 of a package of tofu. Next we threw in some veggies - broccoli, peppers and carrots. We also whipped up a quick sauce consisting of some kitchen staples: chopped garlic, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sriracha and toasted sesame oil. After the veggies had cooked for a few minutes we stirred in the sauce and the rice cakes in the pan.

It didn't turn out to be the most colourful dish, with the white tofu and rice cakes, but it was damn tasty. An easy and filling dinner for a night of sitting back, drinking an IPA and watching the Warehouse 13 Christmas special.