Cumin Lime Tofu

Made this for hubby and I yesterday... Cumin Lime Tofu from the book Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. Hubby confessed that he's never had tofu steaks before... only cubed tofu. I told him that would be changing! LOL We've had some interesting discussions about food since merging our omni/veg household. (Such as... can one eat too many chickpeas?) I think I'll save more of those thoughts for when I make recipes relevant to the discussions.

The Cumin Lime Tofu was tasty and very light... I felt like we should've had steamed veggies as a side instead of the boring rice, which was just poor planning on my part. We were very busy yesterday and I was so focused on the main ingredient that I completely forgot to make a decent side. Ah well. Live and learn.

As far as tofu dishes go, I liked the Cashew Ginger Tofu dish better than this one and would probably make that dish again before I repeated this one.

Tonight, we're having a sweet and spicy lentil chili... stop by tomorrow to see how that turned out! :)

Oh, and I'm excited! I spied the BBC Good Food Vegetarian Christmas magazine at the bookstore over the weekend... haven't given it a proper look-through but I hope to soon. I'd like to make something to pass at my family's get holiday together.

Cashew-Ginger Tofu

Just a quick post to show you what I made for dinner tonight... Cashew-Ginger Tofu from the awesome book, Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. I almost didn't make this because I was feeling lazy and only cooking for one tonight... but I have a beautiful new food processor sitting on my kitchen counter and the thought of using it turns me on! LOL I powered that baby up to make the cashew-ginger sauce for this recipe (and made a little mess too while still learning the ropes of the machine...but hey, I'll learn!). I served it over brown rice that had been cooked in veggie broth. This dish rocked! The sauce was soooooooo yummy. I'll definitely be making this again for my new hubby! I know he'll like it! :)

Oh, and apologies for the bad photo... I'm still trying to find the best photo spot in my new house and as you can see, I haven't found it yet. :(

Lazy Vegan Tofu and Broccoli

My friend and I had a very nice dinner last night. I didn't take any photos of my delicious vegetarian combination plate (think: grape leaves, spinach pie, hummus, baba, falafel, etc.) because I just happened to be seated next to one of the local television personalities in this area... and I didn't want her to think I was pulling out my camera to take a photo of her! LOL Despite that excitement, the biggest news of the night was that I asked my friend to be my maid of honor for my wedding next year... and she said yes! :) I'll be so happy to have her by my side; we've known each other since high school!

Instead of sharing last night's dinner with you, I'm pulling out a dish I prepared a while back but never got the chance to blog about it. It's a Vegweb.com dish that's super easy yet delicious. Titled "Lazy and Hungry Tofu Plus Broccoli" on Vegweb, this dish is simple and a quick dinner if you need something made in a short amount of time. The only change I made was that I used peanut oil because I didn't have sesame oil on hand. I chose to serve this with brown rice that I cooked using veggie broth instead of water. Deelish!

BBQ Tempeh... Fried Tofu and Fries

I'm playing catch-up here with this post. Although I haven't been blogging much the past week, I have been taking pics of things to share with everyone when I do have the chance to sit down and write... like tonight. ;)

These meals are from a couple of weekends ago. My parents had my fiance and I over for dinner to celebrate our engagement. Everyone else had steaks... I had BBQ tempeh! I made the delicious BBQ sauce found in Vegan with a Vengeance because it is truly divine in my opinion. I thought the tempeh was too dry as pictured, so I poured some of the extra BBQ sauce over the tempeh after the photo was taken.

Because there was so much BBQ sauce left over--and I couldn't possibly waste sauce that good--the following day for lunch, my honey and I had fried tofu chunks with homemade fries... with the BBQ sauce for dipping! I used this recipe from vegweb.com to bread the tofu before frying it up. Nothing fancy but quite tasty. It hit the spot as a quick lunch that day. :)

Maple Fried Tofu

Ever since I discovered honey fried tofu earlier this year, I've been dreaming about trying the vegan version--Maple Fried Tofu.

Before getting extremely sick earlier this month, I bought quite a few tubs of 365 Organic brand tofu at Whole Foods Market during a visit to my BF's house (Lucky b*stard lives so close to a Whole Foods, and he's an omnivore that rarely shops there. Grr.). I try to stock up when I visit him because the WF tofu is cheaper than I can find it at my local grocer. So, I stocked up, then got sick and the tofu is now drawing close to the expiration dates (well, end of the month)... so I'll be using it up over the next few weeks. One of the recipes I'm dying to try is the BBQ Pomegranate Tofu from the book, Vegan with a Vengeance. Holding me back has been the pomegranate molasses ingredient. BUT, I found it at Whole Foods this past weekend, so I'm ready to dive in and try this one SOON! But for now, it's been quick and easy cuz we're having a heatwave here in MI... heat indexes hovering at 100 degrees. Oi. Last thing I feel like doing, especially since I don't have central a/c, is to slave over a meal on a hot stove.

Tonight I decided to use some of the tofu in my fridge with the quick and easy Maple Fried Tofu. I love making tofu this way so much that I didn't even make any sides, just the tofu, LOL. The recipe is the same as I reported back in February, but I used pure maple syrup instead of honey. Mmm, mmm good! :-D

Tomorrow, I'm treating a colleague of mine to lunch at the Henry Ford Estate in Dearborn, Mich. They have a great restaurant in a room that used to house Ford's indoor swimming pool! I first blogged about the Estate's veg*n dining options back in June when I ordered Clara's Garden Sandwich, which is a yummy veggie delight. Tomorrow, I plan to order the "Nuts About Spinach" salad... so be sure to come back to read about it! :)

General Tao's Tofu

This recipe appears to be famous on vegweb.com. It sits at the top of the list of the site's most-viewed recipes--and--it also has the most reviews with a whopping 157... all raving about how awesome and delicious this dish was. Therefore, I couldn't wait to try it!

Before I go any further, this recipe did not disappoint. It is indeed awesome!

I must say, it took me way longer than the stated 30 min. prep time. It could be cuz this was my first time manuvering through the recipe, but it still takes more time than I usually put into a weeknight meal. LOL But I made it special cuz Monday nights are dinner with my BF, so I always try to impress him with my veggie cooking skills! ;)

When I make this again, I plan to pre-mix the sauce ingredients (sans water and cornstarch) prior to beginning the tofu. Thankfully, my BF didn't mind watching the tofu cook while I chopped and readied the sauce ingredients. Next time, the sauce ingredients are being made first, which will make it easier to just add the water/cornstarch in and heat it all up as the tofu is looking ready. This sauce WILL thicken, so be sure to cook it long enough so that it does thicken. And, definitely double-up on the sauce as recommended by the reviews on vegweb. You'll want plenty of this yummy sauce for this dish! So double the sauce recipe!

I also followed the recipe's advice and froze my chopped tofu the night before and let it defrost in the fridge while I was at work today. Coating the tofu in the egg-replacer/cornstarch took some time, but I was trying to make it look all pretty. Next time I'll probably speed this up by rolling several pieces of tofu in the cornstarch at the same time. I also plan to cook the tofu longer... we fried it till golden, but just golden. I think we could've fried it more till it browned a bit. We also made the mistake of adding the tofu into the sauce too soon--before the sauce thickened. While it all still tasted yummy, the tofu 'crust' did seem to soften up in the sauce, so next time the tofu won't be added to the sauce until just before serving.

I served it over jasmine rice with broccoli and red peppers.

Other than that, this recipe is AWESOME. I don't know if I've ever had Chinese food that has tasted this good. Seriously. I really haven't eaten much Chinese food since going veg. Prior to becoming veg*n, I mainly ate almond chicken when we ordered Chinese. Once I went veg, I think we dined out at a Chinese restaurant one time and I ordered some kind of noodle thing which I didn't care for. Oh, and my veg*n friend and I tried this one Chinese place that served meatless chinese dishes (think meatless sweet and sour "chicken") but I believe that restaurant may have closed. This recipe is definitely a keeper, tho. Well worth the effort!

Oh.... and did I mention this recipe was vegan? Absolutely no animal ingredients whatsoever! :-D

Hot and Spicy Shake N Bake Tofu

Double post today, because I feel so bad about not posting in such a long time. Tonight, I made myself this tasty dish--Shake N Bake Tofu over Brown Rice. Now, I kinda cheated cuz I didn't actually bake it... I fried it. But, next time I most definitely WILL bake it. This is the second time I've tried Shake N Bake with tofu, and it tastes great, but when frying it, I find that some of the crunchy flavoring tends to fall off quite easily. :-/

Anyhoo, for this recipe, I simply marinated some tofu slices in Italian dressing... then I coated the slices with Shake N Bake Hot and Spicy. Fried those up in a little bit of Olive Oil. While doing that, I fried up some day-old brown rice, and a frozen mix of peppers and onions. Combined it all together and... YUM! I really enjoyed this. I don't like my food too spicy, and this was just right in my book. :)

Tofu Pot Pie

Apologies for the lack of updates. But I'm going to jump right in and post my dinner for yesterday--Tofu Pot Pie! Didn't have a special recipe for this... just modified the Impossibly Easy Chicken Pot Pie recipe over at bettycrocker.com. First, I used the Heart Smart Bisquick instead of regular. And, I substituted Ener-G's Egg Replacer for the real egg. Then, for the pot pie recipe, I substitute cubed tofu for the chicken, 98% fat-free cream of celery condensed soup in place of the cream of chicken soup, and I used a frozen vegetable mix which had kidney beans and chick peas in it. :) I baked as directed and mmmmmmm... yummy pot pie! I've used this recipe before, but alway just omitted the chicken instead of trying to substitute it. I must say, I was pleased with the Tofu Pot Pie version!

Honey Fried Tofu

Found a recipe for Honey Fried Tofu at veggieboards.com. Personally, I like tofu but haven't been very creative in cooking it--until now. I made this for dinner last night and modified the recipe slightly by using canola oil instead of butter; it seemed to work just fine. :)

I decided to use it in a salad of mixed greens, mushrooms, red pepper, cherry tomatoes, sliced apple, walnut bits and craisins, sprinkled with flaxseed meal. And, of course, no salad of mine would be complete without Annie's Naturals Organic Papaya Poppy Seed dressing on top. I'm soooooooo addicted to this dressing--it's AWESOME!

I liked this recipe a lot; truly yummy! And, it smelled GREAT the entire time I was cooking it. :) The recipe says vegans can substitute maple syrup instead of honey; I'm definitely up for giving that version a try, too, especially if it'll turn out as yummy as this.

Have plenty of Honey Fried Tofu left over... will have to think of another way to use it this week--other than a salad!