I love fried tofu and opted to make it for the first time at home. Frying tofu creates a chewy, crispy foundation for sauce. We made Almond Sauce and served it with rice.
As a note, this was the day I received my Lawry's Bzzkit from Bzzagent. We used the seasoning salt in the breading for the tofu and added it to the water for the rice just for fun. The flavor is nice.
Fried Tofu
1 block firm or extra firm tofu
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup flour (we used AP but you can use any)
1/2 teas seasoning salt
Black pepper, opt
oil
Slice the tofu into 1/4-1/2 inch thick slices. Pat dry with towel. Mix together cornstarch, flour, and seasoning salt. Add black pepper if desired. Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a deep skillet. Dip tofu in flour mix, shake off extra (this is very important because the mix will create a slurry at the bottom of your oil). Fry tofu until crisp and golden. Flip and fry other side. Remove from oil and drain on paper towel.
Serve with sauce and rice.
Showing posts with label vegetarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegetarian. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Potatoes, Onions and Fennel
I found this recipe in a pizza cookbook from my library. It was a filling for a calzone. I loved the combination. We often omit the fennel and add bacon for added depth. In fact we had this last night for dinner. I love the potatoes with carmalized fried onions. And it's a really inexpensive dish that's rather filling.
Top a pizza crust or stuff a calzone, use for a pie. The options are endless. We ate this as our main dish with slices of cheese and sprouts.
We microwaved the potatoes until they were mostly soft before slicing for frying.
Potatoes, fennel and onions
3 small boiling potatoes, very thinly sliced
2 med onions, halved and very thinly sliced
2 tbs. olive oil
1 teas fennel seeds
1 teas coarse salt
1/4 teas freshly ground pepper
Heat oil in skillet. Fry onions in olive oil. Add potatoes (can pre-cook to make frying easier). Add seasonings. Fry until potatoes are soft.
If using in a baked dish, mix all the ingredients together add to whatever medium and bake.
Top a pizza crust or stuff a calzone, use for a pie. The options are endless. We ate this as our main dish with slices of cheese and sprouts.
We microwaved the potatoes until they were mostly soft before slicing for frying.
Potatoes, fennel and onions
3 small boiling potatoes, very thinly sliced
2 med onions, halved and very thinly sliced
2 tbs. olive oil
1 teas fennel seeds
1 teas coarse salt
1/4 teas freshly ground pepper
Heat oil in skillet. Fry onions in olive oil. Add potatoes (can pre-cook to make frying easier). Add seasonings. Fry until potatoes are soft.
If using in a baked dish, mix all the ingredients together add to whatever medium and bake.
Websites for vegetarian foods and other topics
I like to collect resources and I love sharing them. There's a lot to be said for a good food resource. I have six I would like to share with you today. Three are vegetarian/vegan sites. I am not a vegetarian. I like meat. I practically live on eggs and cheese. But I can appreciate a good vegetarian dish. I like the complexity of flavors when you take away the meat and cheese. Learning new ways to cook greatly helps the budget. If you stick with the same ole, same ole, you risk not having a balanced diet. More importantly, you risk boredom. With boredom comes poor choices.
I will warn you that many vegetarian sites are politacally motivated. They seek to change food practices. This is not a bad thing but I don't expect everyone to agree with everything posted. Don't get offended but look further into the topic or ignore it all together. Me, I do a combination of the two. I like knowing what's happening in the food world. It affects how I shop but, also, it helps me to plan better. For example, the current Listeria bacteria affecting canteloupe tells me that canteloupe shouldn't be on my shopping list. The canteloupe in the market may be perfectly safe but a massive recall will drive the price up.
So onto the resources
Vegsource is a great resource for all things vegetarian. This will be a great help for those who have friends or family who are vegetarian. It talks all thing political and environmental as well as offers recipes. I will say the recipes require a bit of a search to find (I linked up the site to the best start) but they are there. Check out the recipe for chocolate hummus - man I am so there.
Vegetarian Nutrition is a fairly new website and the content is slow coming but their focus is on nutrition instead of the politics for vegetarians. It's a nice easy website that offers information about food and how to incorporate good nutrition into a vegetarian lifestyle. There are a few recipes but as I said the content is slow coming.
Gone Raw is all recipes and no articles. All the foods are vegan and uncooked (a few dehydrated recipes are included). Raw foods are making a big splash in food trends. The concept is that by not cooking the food you are retaining more nutrients. What I like best is the creativity of the recipes. There are some great snack ideas and awesome desserts. We've played with some recipes. The nice thing is they are naturally gluten-free as well making them a great resource for those with gluten issues. (they are also dairy free)
Stepping away from vegetarian eating, there are three resources that I have found that sound like they could be excellent sources of information.
Fooducate is actually an app for those who have cell phones that can use apps. Scan the barcode of the product you wish to purchase in the store and Fooducate will give you information on that food. They grade foods based on nutrition and additives. Those with low grades come with healthier alternatives. (I don't have a cell phone so this won't work for me).
However, their blog is available to anyone with an internet connection and they have fun recipes.
Shopwell is similar to Fooducate but it's a website program not one for your phone. You register for Shopwell (it's free) and then input information about yourself. You can select from a variety of dietary needs from diabetes to athletic training. Then you choose things you want in your diet such as high calcium, whole grains and things you don't want like preservatives, trans fats, sugar. Then you start "shopping". I put in instant oatmeal for my first attempt. What I got was two pages of varieties of instant oatmeal that came with a color/number code. Products with a red dot and low number did not meet the criteria I set, yellow was okay but not the best, and green meant it fit perfectly. It didn't take long for me to see what the best choices were. This is great when you don't have time at the store to read all the labels. You can "shop" at home and have a perfect list. This doesn't include prices which would make it perfect but it does allow for a better understanding of the foods you want or do not want to include in your diet. One thing you can do is rate what you already buy and see how it fits in the diet you want to have.
Last resource for today is Shelf Life Advice. This site will answer all those questions you have about how long is too long for a food. Most of the time, I don't have a lot of worries because most things are obvious when they go bad but the one thing that freaks me out is mayo. I never feel confident about mayonaise. I will eat frostburnt meat that has been in my freezer longer than my son has been alive but mayo scares me. A quick search and I learned that commercial mayo can still be safe after 4 months open in the fridge or 30 days after the expiration date but that is for better quality. There was no mention that one can die from a long opened jar of store bought mayo which strangely is a relief.
I will warn you that many vegetarian sites are politacally motivated. They seek to change food practices. This is not a bad thing but I don't expect everyone to agree with everything posted. Don't get offended but look further into the topic or ignore it all together. Me, I do a combination of the two. I like knowing what's happening in the food world. It affects how I shop but, also, it helps me to plan better. For example, the current Listeria bacteria affecting canteloupe tells me that canteloupe shouldn't be on my shopping list. The canteloupe in the market may be perfectly safe but a massive recall will drive the price up.
So onto the resources
Vegsource is a great resource for all things vegetarian. This will be a great help for those who have friends or family who are vegetarian. It talks all thing political and environmental as well as offers recipes. I will say the recipes require a bit of a search to find (I linked up the site to the best start) but they are there. Check out the recipe for chocolate hummus - man I am so there.
Vegetarian Nutrition is a fairly new website and the content is slow coming but their focus is on nutrition instead of the politics for vegetarians. It's a nice easy website that offers information about food and how to incorporate good nutrition into a vegetarian lifestyle. There are a few recipes but as I said the content is slow coming.
Gone Raw is all recipes and no articles. All the foods are vegan and uncooked (a few dehydrated recipes are included). Raw foods are making a big splash in food trends. The concept is that by not cooking the food you are retaining more nutrients. What I like best is the creativity of the recipes. There are some great snack ideas and awesome desserts. We've played with some recipes. The nice thing is they are naturally gluten-free as well making them a great resource for those with gluten issues. (they are also dairy free)
Stepping away from vegetarian eating, there are three resources that I have found that sound like they could be excellent sources of information.
Fooducate is actually an app for those who have cell phones that can use apps. Scan the barcode of the product you wish to purchase in the store and Fooducate will give you information on that food. They grade foods based on nutrition and additives. Those with low grades come with healthier alternatives. (I don't have a cell phone so this won't work for me).
However, their blog is available to anyone with an internet connection and they have fun recipes.
Shopwell is similar to Fooducate but it's a website program not one for your phone. You register for Shopwell (it's free) and then input information about yourself. You can select from a variety of dietary needs from diabetes to athletic training. Then you choose things you want in your diet such as high calcium, whole grains and things you don't want like preservatives, trans fats, sugar. Then you start "shopping". I put in instant oatmeal for my first attempt. What I got was two pages of varieties of instant oatmeal that came with a color/number code. Products with a red dot and low number did not meet the criteria I set, yellow was okay but not the best, and green meant it fit perfectly. It didn't take long for me to see what the best choices were. This is great when you don't have time at the store to read all the labels. You can "shop" at home and have a perfect list. This doesn't include prices which would make it perfect but it does allow for a better understanding of the foods you want or do not want to include in your diet. One thing you can do is rate what you already buy and see how it fits in the diet you want to have.
Last resource for today is Shelf Life Advice. This site will answer all those questions you have about how long is too long for a food. Most of the time, I don't have a lot of worries because most things are obvious when they go bad but the one thing that freaks me out is mayo. I never feel confident about mayonaise. I will eat frostburnt meat that has been in my freezer longer than my son has been alive but mayo scares me. A quick search and I learned that commercial mayo can still be safe after 4 months open in the fridge or 30 days after the expiration date but that is for better quality. There was no mention that one can die from a long opened jar of store bought mayo which strangely is a relief.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Vegetarian Meals Once a Week
There's a push to encourage families to eat vegetarian at least once a week. Each group has their own reason why from cost to environment. Eating vegetarian once a week can stretch your budget a little more if done right. The problem is that vegetarian cooking can actually cost more than your average American meat based meal if you start to substitute like for like.
It's very difficult to give up a food you like. Whether your reason is economical, health or any other. When you have to give up a food, you begin to crave it. You want it or something like it. I felt this way when our family went gluten free. We worked hard to include gluten free breads, pastas and other grain based foods into our diet but we were not satisfied. We spend a great deal of money trying to preserve a diet we could no longer eat.
When I started to learn how to change our minds, things improved. There were still meals I wanted and would try to re-create but I found more success in creating new dishes.
The same goes for eating your vegetarian meal of the week. The idea is to find an inexpensive alternate dish not a vegetarian substitute for a favorite meal. For the purpose of stretching the almighty food budget, a good vegetarian meal can help. Meals that use beans or legumes as the focus instead of more expensive meat. I have shared a few since the beginning of this blog and more will likely follow.
Don't get stuck in a rut, try new things and remember that new doesn't have to mean expensive and inexpensive doesn't mean suffering. My family has recently discovered the joy of cooking lentils. So far, they've been without meat.
Brainstorm and see what you can find. Tomorrow I'll share a few vegetarian resources. It's never a bad thing to learn how to cook differently.
It's very difficult to give up a food you like. Whether your reason is economical, health or any other. When you have to give up a food, you begin to crave it. You want it or something like it. I felt this way when our family went gluten free. We worked hard to include gluten free breads, pastas and other grain based foods into our diet but we were not satisfied. We spend a great deal of money trying to preserve a diet we could no longer eat.
When I started to learn how to change our minds, things improved. There were still meals I wanted and would try to re-create but I found more success in creating new dishes.
The same goes for eating your vegetarian meal of the week. The idea is to find an inexpensive alternate dish not a vegetarian substitute for a favorite meal. For the purpose of stretching the almighty food budget, a good vegetarian meal can help. Meals that use beans or legumes as the focus instead of more expensive meat. I have shared a few since the beginning of this blog and more will likely follow.
Don't get stuck in a rut, try new things and remember that new doesn't have to mean expensive and inexpensive doesn't mean suffering. My family has recently discovered the joy of cooking lentils. So far, they've been without meat.
Brainstorm and see what you can find. Tomorrow I'll share a few vegetarian resources. It's never a bad thing to learn how to cook differently.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Lentil Sloppy Joes
I recently got a recipe in my email for Lentil Sloppy Joes. The concept was so simple I couldn't resist - cook lentils and carrots until tender and add Manwich Sloppy Joe Sauce. We didn't have canned sauce so we opted for a package of sloppy joe seasoning (.44 at the local store) and 1/2 quart of home-canned tomatoes. The result was so good that my husband exclaimed after every bite (and a lot of comments about how it tasted just like hamburger sloppy joes). It's easy and a really inexpensive meal.
For those of us in the Palouse, lentils are often given away. We are the home of the Pea and Lentil Commission and when they attend fairs and festivals it's always with the little bags of free legumes (usually three types of lentils - brown, mini brown and red). They also sell big bags of lentils for a good deal (something like 10 pounds for $12 or 12 pounds for $10 - sorry I can't remember but it's still a good deal).
Lentils are still inexpensive in the grand scheme of things - I "budget" $2 per meal for protein. I don't spend that much on every meal but that's my ceiling. Unless I am making something really special, my protein choice can not cost more than that. A single pound bag of lentils falls into this category at the grocery store and 1 pound will make two pots of lentil sloppy joes.
According to the recipe this will make 8 sloppy joes, I found that to be fairly accurate. We feed 4 people at dinner and had enough left over for my brother when he got home from work. It doesn't look like a lot of food but it was plenty. Serve on buttered toasted hamburger buns for an authentic sloppy joes.
Next time I plan on trying a variation without packaged seasoning.
Lentil Sloppy Joes
1 cup dry brown lentils, sorted and rinsed (sorted means looking for rocks, twigs, etc)
4 cups water
1 cup chopped carrots (about the size of the lentils)
1 can sloppy joe sauce (or tomatoes, tomato sauce and sloppy joe seasoning)
1 TB packed brown sugar
8 hamburger buns
Combine lentils and water in saucepan. Cover, bring to boil over med-high heat. Add carrots. Reduce to med-low and cook 20 minutes or until tender. Drain excess water. Stir in sloppy joe sauce and brown sugar, simmer 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Use about 1/2 cup lentils on each bun.
For those of us in the Palouse, lentils are often given away. We are the home of the Pea and Lentil Commission and when they attend fairs and festivals it's always with the little bags of free legumes (usually three types of lentils - brown, mini brown and red). They also sell big bags of lentils for a good deal (something like 10 pounds for $12 or 12 pounds for $10 - sorry I can't remember but it's still a good deal).
Lentils are still inexpensive in the grand scheme of things - I "budget" $2 per meal for protein. I don't spend that much on every meal but that's my ceiling. Unless I am making something really special, my protein choice can not cost more than that. A single pound bag of lentils falls into this category at the grocery store and 1 pound will make two pots of lentil sloppy joes.
According to the recipe this will make 8 sloppy joes, I found that to be fairly accurate. We feed 4 people at dinner and had enough left over for my brother when he got home from work. It doesn't look like a lot of food but it was plenty. Serve on buttered toasted hamburger buns for an authentic sloppy joes.
Next time I plan on trying a variation without packaged seasoning.
Lentil Sloppy Joes
1 cup dry brown lentils, sorted and rinsed (sorted means looking for rocks, twigs, etc)
4 cups water
1 cup chopped carrots (about the size of the lentils)
1 can sloppy joe sauce (or tomatoes, tomato sauce and sloppy joe seasoning)
1 TB packed brown sugar
8 hamburger buns
Combine lentils and water in saucepan. Cover, bring to boil over med-high heat. Add carrots. Reduce to med-low and cook 20 minutes or until tender. Drain excess water. Stir in sloppy joe sauce and brown sugar, simmer 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Use about 1/2 cup lentils on each bun.
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