Vegetarian Blues..

I never realize how healthy I eat until I'm around meat eaters who survive on processed food. Then I find myself making grilled cheese sandwiches longing for legumes and grains.

Great grilled cheese

Butter that bread up with REAL butter
Take some munster and provolone cheese
Whole seed Mustard and put it in between the bread.

and put it in a pan and brown the sides.

The best gift I thought of

The food obsessed freak I am has come up with some great gift ideas. Two of my dear friends recently bought a house. So I was thinking of how to give them something useful and meaningful for Christmas....of course I go for the heart of it and think of the kitchen. We share a love for Indian food (mine a bit more snobby due to my time in England) so I found a great cookbook for them on Indian cuisine. The kicker is, I am about to head out and go to the herb shop and get them a bunch of spices needed for the recipes. Things like that will be the frills the definitely won't be buying when the they are worried about wallpaper and bedding.

Pat knows RICE

Whenever you make rice you might as well make twice as much as you need, cause then later on you can make fried rice, one of the easiest and most versatile leftovers meals. Here's one of the spice combinations I like to use, along with two suggestions for vegetables you can mix in. You can really use any combination of vegetables as long as you know how long they need to cook for. If you fry the rice under fairly high heat you'll get some nice crunchy bits, but if you turn down the heat you can cook whatever vegetables you have until they're done and then turn up the heat for the last minute or two to get the crispiness.



What you'll need: vegetable oil, black mustard seeds, ground tumeric, cooked rice, garlic, tamari sauce



Pour about a tablespoon or so of oil in a frying pan or wok over medium heat. Add 1/2 teaspoon of mustard seed and 1 teaspoon tumeric powder. Swirl around the oil so the tumeric is evenly distributed. When the seeds start popping add your cooked rice. Break it up so there are no chunks and stir the rice through the oil so that it is evenly coated.



Variation 1: add some broccoli florettes after you've got you're rice evenly coated with the tumeric/mustard seed oil. Splash on some tamari sauce. Cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, then add one or two cloves chopped garlic. Cook for another minute, then serve with black beans.


Variation 2: add some frozen peas after you've got your rice coated. Let it sit on top for a minute to defrost before stirring them in. Let that cook for a couple minutes than add a chopped plum tomato, one or two cloves chopped garlic, and some chopped leafy greans, such as spinach, cilantro, or parsley. [I find the easiest way to chop leafy vegetables is to roll them into a tube, then slice it. You don't need to mince it, they just need to be bite-size.] You can also stir in an egg if you want egg-fried rice. This goes great in a breakfast burrito.

Flap Jacks

My friend Pat and my housemate will agree that these rock. I don't understand why people buy instant pancake mix because this recipe is simple and soooooo much better than any instant stuff.

This makes a lot of batter, about 10 huge pancakes worth.

90 grams (3 oz) of butter
3 cups self raising flour (white/wheat your choice. King Arthur flour is my suggestion)
3/4 cup unrefined sugar (or reg sugar, your choice)
1 3/4 cups milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Melt the butter, beat the eggs, mix everything together and make your pancakes.

They are fantastic, you don't even really need to add butter because they are already buttery enough.

Fried Tofu

An easy way to fry tofu and it is a great addition to stirfrys.
First you have to press the tofu to get a lot of the water out. Wrap it in paper towels and put it on a plate. Usually I stack a few plates on top of it, which is an interesting balancing act.
Cut the tofu in to small blocks.
Take some flour, a pinch of cayenne pepper and some garlic salt and roll the tofu in the flour.
Then coat a frying pan with canola oil (I add a touch of toasted sesame oil for flavor, but not too much because it burns easily).
Place the tofu in the oil and fry until golden brown on all sides. It takes about 5-10 minutes.
While it's frying I usually am also starting my stirfry, so when my veggies are near cooked, I can add the tofu in at the end.

Fried tofu is good.

Tofu

I don't have exact measurements for my favorite way to prepare tofu. First I wrap the tofu block in papertowels and press it for at least 20 minutes. Then I put cut the tofu into 1/2 inch cubes and place in a shallow bowl and add the following until the tofu is covered in liquid:
minced fresh ginger
1 clove minced garlic
tamari soy sauce
toasted sesame oil
a bit of hot chili oil
rice vinegar
mirin

I let this marinate for as long as possible, it's good to do ahead and use the next day.
Then to cook, I pour everything into a pan and I let the juices simmer and reduce. The tofu becomes a dark brown color and you can cook until crispy if you want, or until you have a nice syrup. I then use this tofu with an assortment of meals, whether it is with stirfry, or just on the side with some quinoa. I have also made a tempura batter and dipped the marinated tofu into the batter and fried it up. That's a bit more labor intensive.