Category Archives: Food

Tofu with peanut sauce

Peanut sauce inspired by this recipe from Daily Garnish.  I use peanut butter instead of peanut flour, but everything else works out pretty much the same.

The basics:

  • Make peanut sauce.
  • Cut a 14-16oz. block of extra firm tofu into cubes (24 cubes, in this case, if you were curious).  Cook tofu separately from other ingredients.  Slow is the key.  (See notes on tofu cooking below.)
  • Toss cooked tofu with about half of the peanut sauce.  Reserve remaining sauce for the veggies.
  • Prep any veggies you want.  I used carrots, Napa cabbage, and garlic in this dish, plus fresh green onions for topping.  After the tofu came out of the skillet, I tossed the veggies in for a quick stir-fry with a bit of oil and a splash of soy sauce.  Top with remaining peanut sauce.
  • Serve over rice or noodles.  For dinner, we ate this over our homemade noodles, dressed up with a bit of sesame oil.

The Tofu

Prior to this meal, I relied on my non-stick pan for perfectly cooked tofu cubes.  With the addition of a 15-inch cast iron skillet, plus some stainless steel pots, we’ve really minimized our reliance on our two remaining non-stick pans.

Still, I originally reached for the big non-stick pan, afraid the tofu would stick too much in the cast iron unless I used TONS of oil.  But what fun is dinner without a little experimentation?

I cooked the tofu in the big cast iron skillet by itself.  I coated my tofu cubes in peanut and canola oil, and also added some of both kinds of oil directly to the skillet.  In the end, I did use a good bit of oil, but it still fell within my acceptable range, and, most importantly, it left me with delicious, crunchy tofu cubes, no sticking, and no chemical-coated pan required!

For an in-depth “Tofu Tutorial,” also courtesy of the Daily Garnish, click here.

Celebrate St. Paddy’s Day with Green Food

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It’s a great day to have a green blog 😉

Speaking of green, I grew up with my grandma’s St. Patrick’s day meals, where everything was green — literally!  Green butter, green water, green wine & beer, green horseradish — she really went all out.

The St. Patrick’s Day dinners bring back great memories, and I love the spirit and festivity, but these days, the thought of consuming all that green food coloring makes me cringe.

Fortunately, there are a plethora of green foods out there, so you can still have a green meal without artificial dyes.  As an extra bonus, most naturally green foods are pretty good for you.

Green on green

Here are a few ideas:

  • Green cabbage — a very traditional St. Paddy’s Day food, but the traditional cooking method — boiling forever — robs it of most of the green color (and most of the nutritional value).  Try it fresh in a cabbage salad.
  • Spinach — try a simple saute with olive oil and garlic or fresh with your favorite salad toppings.
  • Pesto — the basil gives it a fabulous bright green color.  Serve with your favorite [green] veggies and pasta.
  • Garnish plates or beverages with fresh herbs such as mint, basil, parsley, or cilantro.
Complete with shamrock plant in the background

There are a bunch of green foods not on my list, so it’s your turn!  What is your favorite naturally green food?

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We’ll be keeping things fairly traditional with our reuben sandwiches tonight.  Since we made our sauerkraut with purple cabbage, we’ll have to make sure to have a serving of green on the side 🙂

Easy black bean soup — make it tonight

A pot of perfectly cooked black beans served as the base for this delicious soup.

Lacking a go-to black bean soup recipe, I turned to the internet and found a recipe for TGI Friday’s Black Bean Soup.  I’ve never had the soup at the restaurant (I think I’ve eaten there twice in my life), but this soup is quite tasty!

Here is the recipe with my modifications:

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 3/4 cup diced white onion
  • 3/4 cup diced celery
  • 1/2 cup diced carrot
  • 1/4 cup diced red bell pepper (any color would be fine — this is what we had in the freezer)
  • 1/2 bulb of garlic, shopped
  • 6 cups cooked black beans (equivalent to four (15 ounce) cans black beans)
  • 3 cups black bean cooking liquid (could also use veggie broth or water, but I like cooking with my bean juice when possible)
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 t. smoked salt*, plus more to taste
  • 1 t. smoked paprika*

*The original recipe calls for liquid smoke.  I had good intentions of purchasing some recently, but balked when I saw the ingredient list, which included unnecessary color additives.  I used smoked salt and smoked paprika to give the soup that same smokey flavor.

In a large pot, saute the veggies in the oil.  Puree half of the black beans (3 cups, or slightly more for a thicker soup) with the liquid (bean juice, broth or water).  Combine all ingredients in the pot with the sauteed veggies.  Simmer 30-60 minutes (depending on how thick you want it or how impatient you are to eat).

We garnished our soup with chopped green onions and frozen corn.  Shredded cheese or sour cream would also make good toppings.

Weekend bicycling whirlwind

The weekend’s bike trips (and restaurant visits — three in one weekend!!!):

Friday

  • South Grand — Lunch at Basil Spice, a Thai restaurant, with Matthew and my FIL.  We dined while watching construction work on the South Grand Great Streets project.  Pad See-iew for him, Pad Thai for her, both with tofu, both off of the $6.95 lunch menu.  We shared our dishes.   Both were good, though we really enjoyed the Pad See-iew.  I came prepared with my own take out containers and was disappointed with the clean plates that resulted from the smaller lunch portions 😦
  • The Hill — Errands at the Italian shops.  Purchases included olive oil, dried porcini mushrooms, farro (an Italian grain that I’ve been wanting to try), and Swiss cheese so we can make more reubens.  Unfortunately, our source for affordable dry active yeast has dried up, though I did see a mobster in the bakery, so the stop there wasn’t a total waste.
  • The CWE — Dinner at Terrene.  Terrene, with a focus on local food and sustainability, has been on our radar for some time, but until January, it was on the “allows smoking — do not patronize” list.  (Yes, two restaurants in one day — crazy for us, but we had a Groupon-type thing that needed to be used.)  I’m still a bit hesitant to whip out the camera in restaurants, so no food pics.  We ordered the flatbread, half veg sausage, half mushroom; the gnocchi, and the vegetarian meatloaf with mushroom gravy.  We enjoyed the first two items, but the veg meatloaf was missing something.  I realized later that the only trace of the gravy was three small oyster mushrooms — wish I’d realized that earlier and asked for more gravy.

Saturday

  • Tower Grove South — Winter farmers’ market.  With the beautiful weather, two vendors set up outside the church.  We purchased spinach, a HUGE head of bok choy, green onions, and carrots.
  • Tower Grove South — Trip #2 to the neighborhood for my prenatal appointment at River City Birth, followed by a stop at the new-and-improved Local Harvest Grocery, featuring a nice, spacious bathroom — the highlight of the visit for my poor, cramped bladder 😉  We also bought some bulk dry goods and a local Colby cheese.
  • After this trip, we returned home, where I proceeded to take a 2-hour nap 🙂  And then there was a car trip 😦 to Young Ethicals game night for good snacks, games, and fun times.

Sunday

  • The Grove — Church at St. Cronan’s.
  • South Grand — Lunch at Pho Grand with Matthew and my MIL.  We split a vegetarian special and a special curry, though there was some contention about the way they were split — the hungry, hungry hippo pregnant lady may be taking more than her share 😉
  • Interlude to make lemon squares (from our lemons — frozen juice and zest) and do laundry.
  • The Y — if my bike isn’t already out, I usually just walk to the Y, since it’s less than a mile away.  If I’m out and about, and know I might be biking again that day, I lock my bike up outside to save lugging it down and up the basement stairs an extra time.
  • Aaannnddd, another nap — the active transportation takes a lot out of me these days!

Brine your beans

A couple years ago, I switched from canned beans to dried beans.

Advantages of dried over canned:

  • Cheaper — plain a simple.
  • Avoids BPA exposure from canned beans.
  • Avoids excess sodium in canned beans.
  • Less packaging waste.  I buy most of my beans from the bulk bins, reusing plastic bags.  Even if you buy prepackaged dry beans, it involves much less packaging per amount of beans.
  • Dry beans require less energy to transport because they lack the liquid weight.

While I was happy enough with my bean-cooking method (quick soak or an overnight soak, drain and rinse, boil for about an hour), we recently discovered a new method that yields delicious, lightly salted cooked beans, reminiscent of the canned variety in a good way.

We happened across the idea of brining beans while flipping through an old edition of America’s Test Kitchen.  Basically, it’s a modified version of the quick soak, with salt added to the cooking water.

I initially reacted with skepticism, since the number one rule of cooking dried beans is “don’t add salt until the beans are fully cooked — it will make the beans tough and increase the cooking time.”  However, something about this method totally works.

How to brine beans

  1. Put desired quantity of dried beans in a pan.
  2. Add water to cover the beans, plus 1/2 to 1 inch on top — keep track of how much water you add.
  3. For every quart of water, add 2 generous teaspoons of salt.
  4. Cover and bring to a boil.
  5. Boil 3-5 minutes, then remove from heat.
  6. Let stand at least one hour (I’ve let mine stand for up to 8 hours — time over one hour neither helps nor hurts).
  7. Drain and rinse beans.
  8. Return to pot and cover with fresh water.
  9. Bring to a boil and cook 40 minutes to an hour, or until beans reach desired tenderness.
  10. Alternate cooking method: place in crock pot with enough water to cover.  Turn to low, and cook for 8-10 hours.

I’ve used this method successfully with black beans, pinto beans, and garbanzo beans thus far.  It should work for almost any kind of dried bean.

For ultimate convenience, follow the brining steps in the evening, letting the beans soak overnight, rinse them in the morning, and place in a crock pot to cook while you’re gone during the day.  You’ll return home to fabulous beans just waiting to be incorporated in your dinner — almost as convenient as the canned variety!