Deconstructed guacamole quesa-jitas

I have been threatening to make deconstructed guacamole for a while, and on Saturday I finally followed through. I used it as the key ingredient in dinner, which was something between a quesadilla and fajita. I used up some leftover tofu in it too.

For fellow southsiders, Hyde Park Produce tends to have good avocados at a reasonable (maybe even cheap) price.

Deconstructed guacamole

2 firm avocados, chopped

1/2 tomato, chopped

Corn, optional

Cilantro, optional

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 healthy shake arizona dreaming or other chili powder

1 shake chipotle powder

1 shake cajun seasoning or seasoned salt

2 pinches cumin

1 pinch coriander

1 shake tabasco

Combine ingredients.

I served this on tortillas with sautéed onions, dry fried tofu, tomato slices, cheese, sour cream and jalapenos. 

Japanese spa salad

This recipe is from the September issue of Vegetarian Times. They call it Tofu and Cucumber Salad with Sesame-Ginger Dressing, but I call it Japanese spa salad because it seems like the kind of thing someone would give you at a spa where you went to get "detoxifying" treatments and maybe do some yoga and meditation. It's a great summer salad because it requires absolutely no cooking and makes you feel refreshed. It's definitely not summer here, but I ate it for lunch today because it is so quick to make, especially if you don't bother with the recipe's dressing. (Just drizzle some soy sauce and sesame oil on it instead.)

The brand of soft tofu I have is Phoenix Bean, and it's made here in Chicago. I highly recommend it. It seems beanier than most tofu I've had. According to Yelp, one can go buy their tofu directly from the factory. I'm excited to go there sometime and try their other tofus.

This salad is satisfying without being filling, and it makes me feel light and energized.

Japanese spa salad

Makes 1 salad; multiply recipe as necessary

4 oz. soft tofu, sliced

1/2 avocado, sliced

2 inches cucumber, sliced

1/2 sheet nori, crumbled

1 tsp sesame seeds

Dressing (makes enough dressing for several salads):

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup rice vinegar

3 tbsp minced fresh ginger

1 tsp sugar

Mix dressing ingredients together. Arrange tofu, avocado, and cucumber on a plate. Sprinkle nori and sesame seeds on top. Drizzle with dressing.

Rice noodle salad (salad week begins)

Ev and I were in Utah for 25 days or so. We cooked a lot while we were there but we did not have many of our supplies, so we were kind of limited. We also did eat out more than we are used to. So when we got back on Tuesday we were craving a return to our usual food. So began our week of salads. This is a rice noodle salad, which is mostly uncooked. I resisted the urge to put eggplant in because lately I have been feeling that I add it to everything. As always with my recipes, the measurements are very approximate guesses. As you can see from the pictures, I arranged Evelyn's very artfully on a plate and threw mine in a bowl.

Rice noodle salad:

3 big leaves of kale torn into pieces

6 oz. rice noodles

grape tomatoes

r. pepper sliced thin

16 slices cucumber

extra firm tofu, pressed

sliced white mushrooms (my salad only; Ev doesn't like mushrooms that much)

Dressing:

2 in fresh ginger minced

1 1/2 Tbs soy

1 1/2 Tbs rice vinegar

1 pinch sugar

1 tsp sesame oil

Boil water and cook rice noodles.

Fry the tofu in a dry (un-oiled) non-stick pan over medium high heat. It will take a while for it to release its water, during which time it does not really brown. Continue until the tofu is brown all over (flip it occasionally of course). When done remove and turn off heat. Put the kale on the still hot pan. This should be enough to cook the kale if you make sure all parts spend some time touching the hot pan.

Combine the non-dressing ingredients. Then pour the dressing over.

Dressing:

Combine the first 4 ingredients and let sit. Add the sesame oil and stir well.

This was quite a good salad.

BBQ pizza

Inspired by Golda of The Weekly Pizza, whose mission I admire very much, I decided to make a bbq pizza for lunch on Saturday. I used my go-to half whole wheat crust. I jazzed it up a bit more than Golda did, adding kale and pineapple, two of my favorite pizza ingredients. Next time, I might use more sauce or a spicy wing sauce like she did. The sauce kind of disappeared, even though I thought I put a pretty thick layer on. My sauce was sweet prepared bbq sauce mixed with a spicier steak sauce in equal portions.

I intended to use both "pizza blend" and blue cheese, but I forgot to add the blue cheese. That might have been too much, though, with the extra ingredients. The end result was a pretty satisfying pizza, and I think it was even better as dinner the next day, although maybe that's just because I was really hungry!

BBQ pizza

1/3 cup steak sauce

1/3 cup prepared BBQ sauce1/4 pound firm tofu, pressed and cut into 1-inch cubes

Vegetable oil for sauteing

1/2 medium onion, sliced into half-rings

3 kale leaves, washed and coarsely chopped

1 pizza dough, rolled out

1 cup (or so-I didn't measure) pizza cheese

8 oz diced pineapple

Mix steak sauce and BBQ sauce in a medium bowl. Place tofu in a large container with a sealable lid and spoon some sauce onto it until it's covered. Marinate for about 30 minutes. Spread in a single layer on a baking pan. Bake in an oven or toaster oven at 350 for about 30 minutes, turning once while cooking. The tofu should be a little chewy. Set aside.

Pour oil into a saute pan. Add onion and cook, disturbing only occasionally, until onion is soft and has browned a little. Add the kale and cook until wilted. Set aside.

Spread remaining sauce on pizza dough, or make up some more if necessary. Cover with pizza cheese and add tofu, pineapple, and kale, in that order. Bake in preheated 425-degree oven for about 10 minutes, or until crust is done.

Kale and tofu salad

I got this recipe off of Cheap, Healthy, Good a few months ago but just got around to making it. Believe it or not, I had never had raw kale, and I was a bit wary. I didn't think it would taste bad, but I didn't think kale's bitter green virtues would be accentuated by raw consumption. I was wrong. I think I still prefer the just-wilted taste, but the raw kale was a nice change of pace. I was also wary of the combination of soy sauce and balsamic vinegar, but it was pretty good. The only thing is that I found it overly flavored when I made it the first time. I had let it sit in the marinade for several hours. I think just a 30-minute marinade is ideal.

Kale and tofu salad, slightly modified from this post.

1 pound extra firm tofu

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

3 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp honey

4-5 cups chopped kale (I just used regular curly kale, but any kind would probably be good)

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

3 tbsp olive oil

Juice of 1-2 lemons

Salt and pepper

Cube the tofu. Mix together next 4 ingredients and marinate tofu in them for about 30 minutes. Place tofu on oiled baking sheet and pour excess marinade over it. Cook tofu in 375 oven for about 30 minutes, flipping after 20 minutes.

Put the kale in a big bowl. Mix together next four ingredients and adjust acidity and seasoning to taste. Toss kale with dressing. Add tofu.

Braised tofu in caramel sauce

This was one of those recipes that seemed so unusual that I just had to try it. It comes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I am not very familiar with Vietnamese cuisine, but he says that this sauce, which is caramel with lots of black pepper, is typical Vietnamese fare. It is really good! The caramel is sweet but a little bitter, and the salt from the soy sauce balances out the sweetness. 1 teaspoon of pepper is quite a lot. We aren't used to pepper being so integral to the taste of the dish. It's really nice.

The one thing I plan on changing next time is to add some vegetables. I am a vegetarian in part because I love to eat vegetables, and a meal of rice and tofu with brown sauce is not veggie-laden enough for me. The first time I made this, I made a side of kale, and it was really good. We had some spinach on the side last night when we had it, but while we were brainstorming, we decided that next time we're going to add some cubed eggplant to the sauce itself while it's cooking. I also think carrot and broccoli might stand up well to the sauce and be good additions. We'll let you know how it turns out.

Braised tofu in caramel sauce

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tsp dulse, optional (makes the soy sauce taste a little more like fish sauce)

1/2 cup diced onion

1 tsp ground black pepper

Juice of 1 lime

1-2 lbs. tofu, pressed if you have time, and cut into 1-inch cubes

Cooked brown rice for serving

Put a large, deep (we used a Le Creuset pot) skillet over medium heat. Add the sugar and 2 tbsp water. Cook, occasionally shaking the pan and/or stirring with a wooden spoon, until the sugar liquefies and darkens. Turn off the heat.

Combine soy sauce, dulse, and 1/2 cup water. Very carefully, add the soy mixture to the caramel. It will bubble furiously. Don’t let your skin be too close to it. It’s a little scary. When it has stopped bubbling, turn the heat up to medium-high and cook, stirring, until caramel has all dissolved into soy sauce liquid. It should only take a minute or so.

Add the onion and cook until soft, 3-4 minutes. Add black pepper, lime juice, and tofu. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tofu is heated through and seems to have taken in a lot of the caramel mixture. If you can’t tell, five minutes should be about right.

Serve over brown rice with a side of kale or other veggie.

Celery and tofu salad

We have really been enjoying the spice oil! I have been using a mixture of it, sesame oil, and regular vegetable oil to saute onions and kale. Yum! Jon topped some popcorn with spice oil and salt the other day. The non-capsicum spices really came through on the popcorn.

(Sorry, it just looks like popcorn.)

We have also made the celery-tofu salad from the Minimalist column that originally gave us the idea to make the spice oil. We were quite underwhelmed with the recipe as written, but we made some tweaks that really takes it up a notch. Even when generously salted, I found Bittman's version hot but lacking in depth of flavor. We upped the flavor with ponzu sauce and sesame oil, and it's now quite nice. (Ponzu sauce is a Japanese condiment made from soy sauce and citrus juice.) I think the ponzu was key because it added both saltiness and acid, which the spice oil doesn't have. To bump up the calories a bit, we have also served this over rice noodles, but you'll still be chewing for a long time if you want to fill up on this. I'd recommend eating something more substantial with it to make a full meal.

If you haven't seen pressed tofu before, ours comes in a package like this.

And the bricks look like this.

(I forgot to take the picture until after I had sliced it, so I just stuck it back together.)

It is, as the name suggests, pressed until it is very firm. Some brands are also lightly spiced as well. The texture is really nice for dishes where you won't be cooking the tofu, like this salad or a spring roll. It's also good just cut up on regular salads if you want to pump up the protein a little.

Sorry, I don't include amounts on any of the ingredients. The amount of celery and tofu you use depends on how much salad you want to eat, and the other ingredients are all to taste.

Celery and tofu salad

Celery

Pressed tofu

Sesame oil

Chinese spice oil

Ponzu sauce

Rice noodles (the flat ones), cooked, optional

Slice celery into thin spears. I did this by slicing each rib into three pieces and then each piece into two or three pieces lengthwise. Cut the tofu into thin slices roughly the same size as the celery. Top with sesame oil, spice oil, and ponzu sauce to taste. Serve over rice noodles if desired. Chopped celery leaves are nice for garnishing if you're into that kind of thing.

What I ate for dinner last night

This is just a quick meal I made with some stuff I had in the fridge, freezer, and pantry. Since Jon has left and I will be out of town for a lot of the summer, I have been trying to eat through a lot of the food we've accumulated. I call it the freezer/pantry reduction diet. So this is what I had for dinner last night. The seasonings are Indian, but I don't know that the ingredients are particularly authentic. That didn't bother me, though. It was delicious over basmati rice. I tried to figure out a short, descriptive name for this but failed.

Indian-spiced chickpea, sweet potato, tofu skins, and kale stir-fry-ish thing

Vegetable oil for sauteing
1/2 tsp whole mustard seeds
1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1/2 tsp amchoor powder, optional
1/2 tsp kalonji, optional
1/2 tbsp curry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped into 1-inch cubes
4 oz tofu skins, cut into thin strips
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 bunch kale, washed, large stems removed, leaves coarsely chopped

Heat the oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add the mustard seeds and let them pop for about 45 seconds. (This can be slightly dangerous and is not advised for children or the shirtless.) Lower the heat to medium, add the cumin seeds, and let them sizzle for about 30 seconds. Add the rest of the spices, the onion, and the sweet potato. Stir to coat vegetables with oil and spices. Pour about 1/4 cup water into skillet to deglaze and put the cover on to let the sweet potato steam. Check on it periodically, push it around a little, and add more water if the pan gets dry and the spices start to stick.

When the sweet potato is tender, add the tofu skins and chickpeas and cook until heated through. Add the kale and cover the pan to let it steam. Check after a couple minutes and push it around a little to help it wilt. When the kale has wilted, remove pan from heat and serve.

Two coconut vinegar recipes

A Chinese grocery store opened up near where Ev tutors and I have reaped the benefits,
namely coconut vinegar. Below are two dishes I made with it (the sauce is basically the
same). The cabbage bowl was colorful and fun, but the wraps are the star.
Cabbage salad bowl:

Dressing:
Coconut vinegar
Soy sauce
Minced fresh ginger
Minced garlic
Honey

Rice noodles
Tofu skins

Red cabbage, thinly sliced
Bean sprouts
Carrots, julienned
Snow peas
Pea shoots or other green sprouts

Combine dressing ingredients to taste. Cook rice noodles as per package directions. Cook tofu skins in a pan with some oil. Add some soy sauce and cook for 1 more minute. Combine all ingredients and dress.

Lettuce Wraps:

Dressing:
Coconut vinegar
Soy sauce
Minced fresh ginger
Minced garlic
Honey
Sriracha sauce

Vegetable oil for sauteeing
½ onion, thinly sliced
1/3 eggplant, julienned
3 oz shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
6 0z tofu skin, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced

1/2 cucumber, sliced
Several cherry tomatoes, sliced
Snow peas

Romaine lettuce leaves

Combine dressing ingredients to taste.
Slice everything but the lettuce thinly like match sticks. Saute the onion and eggplant until eggplant is tender. Add the shiitakes and tofu skins and saute another five minutes or so. Add the pepper and saute for about three more minutes. Dress with sauce. To eat, put a little bit of everything in a lettuce leaf and wrap it up as neatly as you can. (Good luck!)

My first tofu scramble

Hooray, I have met another goal of vegan month: I have now made a tofu scramble. I based it on this recipe, suggested by mollyjade. It contains nutritional yeast, which I had never used before. I don't know exactly what it contributed to the taste, but the scramble was definitely very savory and good. I enjoy egg scrambles at breakfast, and I can definitely see myself doing some tofu scrambles instead. Next time, I will add more vegetables because my preferred tofu brand (aka the cheapest one at Fiesta) comes in 1-pound containers, and that's a lot of tofu. I might also omit the lime juice. I found the sourness a little odd. Below is the scramble exactly as I made it this morning. My tofu expired several months ago, so it had dried out somewhat and I didn't have to drain or press it. If you are more punctual about eating your tofu, you might want to press it or drain it on towels.

Tofu scramble
This made two hearty helpings, and we had about one cup left over.

2 tsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
2 Swiss chard leaves, stems separated from green parts, both chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp salt
1 lb tofu, crumbled
juice of 1/2 lime
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
whole cumin seeds for garnish, optional

Saute the onion, red pepper, and chard stems in the oil for about 3 minutes, or until soft. Add the spices and stir. Deglaze the pan with about 1/4 cup water. Stir in the tofu and cook for about 7 minutes. Add the chard leaves and cook until wilted, about 3 more minutes. Stir in the lime juice and nutritional yeast. Garnish with cumin seeds if desired.

Seaweed, celery, and tofu skin stir-fry

Please don't let the bad photo dissuade you from trying this recipe. I was too hungry to take my time on the pictures and got what I deserved. I got Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian last year, and he has recipes for several ingredients I had never tried before, most unusually seaweed (which he seems to be campaigning to call sea greens). I'm fairly adventurous, and I was very pleasantly surprised when I tried a seaweed salad in a Japanese restaurant for the first time, so I bought several kinds of seaweed when I was in Chinatown. They might also be available at Whole Foods and Central Market type stores, but they're dirt-cheap in Chinatown.
I don't know very much about seaweed, but there are several different kinds. Of course, everyone knows nori, which is used to wrap sushi. Kombu, or kelp, usually comes in brittle flat sheets and is used to make dashi, the stock used in miso soup. Hijiki, arame, and wakame come as small tendrils. Wakame is pretty salty, but none of the other ones I've mentioned are. I used half wakame and half hijiki in this recipe. Bittman says that arame and dulse can also be used. I've never encountered dulse, but he says it's a red seaweed native to New England. None of these are the kinds you find in Japanese restaurant seaweed salad. I don't know if that is easy to get fresh outside of Japanese restaurants. There are also sea beans, but I find them gaggingly salty.
In case you have trepidation about eating sea greens, you should know that I definitely didn't grow up eating them, but they aren't slimy or overly salty or fishy. They are high in iron, potassium, protein, and essential trace minerals like magnesium. (Not every one is high in every category, but most of them are high in at least one of those.)

Seaweed, celery, and tofu skin stir-fry (adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman)

2/3 cup dry seaweed, some combination of arame, dulse, hijiki, and wakame (I used half hijiki and half wakame)
1 4x4-inch square of kombu, thinly sliced (scissors work well to cut it)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup onions, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger, minced
3 stalks celery, cleaned and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 oz tofu skins, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted if you want

Put the seaweed in a 2-cup measuring cup and add warm water up to 2 cups. The seaweed will expand like crazy. It's pretty amazing. You should have about 2 cups at the end. If you've got too much, just toss a little extra in the stir-fry or add it to the next Asian-style soup you make, or dress it with some sesame oil, ginger, and soy sauce for a little salad.
Cover the kombu in plenty of water and simmer for about 15 minutes so it will get soft. Save the soaking water, call it dashi, and use it to make miso soup later. Reserve the kombu.
Heat the oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions, garlic, and ginger and cook until the onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the seaweed, celery, kombu, and tofu skins. If the seaweed was well-drained, add a little water (not more than 1/4 cup), but if it wasn't, it shouldn't need more water. Cover the pan and cook for about 7 minutes. Stir in the soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Serve. I think this would be ideal served over brown rice, but I forgot to start cooking it, so I used black rice noodles, another exotic Chinatown find.

To make up for the bad picture at the beginning, here's a cool picture of some tofu skins before getting chopped and cooked.

Ginger-miso yam wraps

In the airport on my way to a wedding last weekend, I was browsing through magazines to kill some time and the Vegetarian Times caught my eyes. This was the first recipe I flipped to, and it looked intriguing enough that I bought the magazine. It provided good reading and lots of inspiration on the flight. I even bought a subscription when I got home, so I'm sure you'll see many more VT recipes on this blog.
This recipe turned out really well, and I would not thought to have put it together. In the magazine, it doesn't call for blanching the collard leaves, but it makes them more supple, so they don't crack when you roll them up, and I like the taste better. I will say, however, that the raw ones are a little less messy to eat, so if you wanted to eat this in the car or somewhere you didn't have access to a napkin or utensils, you might want to go with raw. You can probably use other greens in place of the collards if you want, but collards are generally the cheapest green at the store, and they work perfectly well. The recipe called for smooth peanut butter, but I didn't have any, so I substituted tahini. I know people often make the substitution the other way in hummus. Both of them are rich and nutty and work well.

Two blanched leaf wraps on the left, one raw leaf wrap on the right

Ginger-miso yam wraps (from Vegetarian Times)
1 lb sweet potatoes (2-3 small or 1 large)
2 tbsp miso paste
1 tbsp smooth peanut butter or tahini
1 tsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp finely chopped shallot or onion
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen shelled edamame
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
6 ox firm silken tofu, crumbled (1 cup)
2 tbsp chopped cilantro, optional
8 collard green leaves

Bake the sweet potatoes. I poke them a few times, wrap them in foil, and bake at 400-425 for an hour or so. When they have cooled enough to handle, scoop out the flesh and mash it. You can do this up to three days or so in advance and just keep it in the fridge. Mash the miso and peanut butter or tahini into the sweet potatoes.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium and add the onion, ginger, and garlic. Saute them for about 3 minutes. Add the edamame, 1/4 cup water, and cayenne. Cook 3 minutes more. The water should be mostly evaporated, and the edamame should be a good texture. Remove from heat and stir in tofu, cilantro if using, and sweet potato mixture.

Now prep the collard leaves. Wash them thoroughly and cut off the bottom part of the stem that extends past the leaf. Don't cut out the thick part of the stem in the leaf, but do thin it by cutting it in half through the part that sticks out behind the leaf. (I hope that made sense.) You can either use them raw or blanch them. If you want to blanch them, bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Place the leaves in the water and remove them almost immediately with tongs. I do this one at a time so none of them will get mushy. They should turn bright green and become very pliable.

To assemble the wraps, spoon 1/4-1/3 cup sweet potato mixture onto a collard leaf. Roll it up the best you can, trying not to let the mixture spill everywhere. I'm imperfect at this right now, but it still tastes good. You can also make smaller, two-bite wraps by cutting the leaves into halves or thirds before filling them. I would say 3 wraps is a good serving. Vegetarian Times says 2 wraps is a serving, but that's only 179 calories, and that's not many for a lunch. In case you're curious, they include the nutritional info for two wraps: 179 calories, 10 g protein, 5 g fat, 25 g carbs, 302 mg sodium, 5 g fiber, and 8 g sugars.

Eggplant with four basils

At the farmers' market a couple weeks ago, I found these beautiful tiny eggplants:
You can tell they are tiny because that's only two pounds. I should have included some sort of reference item in the picture. They were reasonably priced, a rarity at Houston farmers' markets, and I couldn't resist them. I knew I wanted to do something special with them. They couldn't be relegated to a pizza topping or baba ganoush, as delightful as it is, or a stir-fry bursting with other flavors. I had never made eggplant basil before, but I knew it was just what I wanted. When we go to a Chinese restaurant, Jon and I almost always get an order of it, but I had never tried making it at home. I looked at a couple recipes online, but they seemed too involved, so I just followed my instincts and made this up.
I used one pound just in case it was awful. It wasn't, so I made it again, with some variations, with the second pound a few days later. This week, I bought another basket of beautiful tiny eggplants and plan on making this dish again tonight. I used dark soy sauce the first time, which is why it's almost black in the picture, and light soy sauce the second time. Both are good. Dark soy sauce is a little thicker and sweeter. I also added tofu skins the second time. They were fantastic, but I also like the simplicity of the dish without it. I call this eggplant with four basils because I have four kinds of basil growing on my balcony garden. Thai basil, with its anisey kick, is the best, but unfortunately my Thai basil plant is petering out, so I supplemented it with my normal sweet basil, purple globe basil, and mystery basil that just started growing in one of my pots about a month ago. It doesn't look like any of the other ones. I think maybe it's a hybrid of Thai and sweet basil that somehow got started by being near my other basil plants, but I don't know. I love mysteries.

Eggplant with four basils
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 lb eggplant, preferably tiny succulent ones, halved or quartered lengthwise and cut into 2-inch chunks (if you're using regular supermarket eggplant, go for 2x1x1-inch pieces)
4 oz tofu skin, cut into 1-inch cubes, optional
1/2 cup basil or a mix of four basils, divided, roughly chopped if leaves are large
3 tbsp soy sauce, either dark or light

Heat oils in a wok or large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add eggplant pieces and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 4 minutes. Add tofu skins, 2 tbsp basil, soy sauce, and 2 tbsp water. Cover and steam until eggplant is tender, about 5 minutes more. Add more water if the pan dries out too much. Remove from heat and stir in most of the remaining basil. Serve over rice with a little extra fresh basil on top.

Inspiration soup

It's August in Houston, a.k.a. NOT SOUP WEATHER. But I have a small freezer, and I had four quarts of chickpea cooking water in it, which meant that at least one quart would fall out every time I opened the freezer. So on Sunday, I pretended it was cold outside and made a nice hearty soup. I call this inspiration soup because I didn't have much of a plan when I started. I knew I was using a chickpea broth base. The rest of it just happened to be in the fridge. The tofu skins were really nice in this. I used the ones labeled fu bao. I don't know if this is the "official" name. I cut them into thin strips, and they kind of reminded me of the egg in egg drop soup. They were savory and protein-full and slightly chewy. Here is the recipe, but if you make inspiration soup, you should just let your fridge be your guide.

Close-up of some tofu skins in my soup

Inspiration soup
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp curry powder (I used Penzey's Balti seasoning)
3 leaves kale, washed, thick center rib removed, and cut into thin strips
4 oz tofu skins, cut into thin strips
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
1 1/2 qts chickpea cooking water
1 3/4 tsp salt

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrot and saute until onion is translucent. Add the paprika, cumin seeds, curry powder, and kale. Cover and saute/steam until kale is wilted. Add the tofu skins, chickpeas, broth, and salt. Heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste as deemed appropriate at the table.

Spinach-chickpea-tofu skin curry

This is the curry that we served with the salad from the last post. I was just going to use the spinach and chickpeas, but I learned that one of our guests isn't big on beans. It turns out she likes chickpeas just fine, but I wanted to make sure she'd have something substantial even if she picked around the beans. The tofu skin was perfect for that. For this recipe, I used the wet kind. It was labeled "fu chang" at the store. I don't know if that's the official name for it. It is wrinkly and has a nice chewy texture. Like regular tofu, it doesn't have much flavor of its own and picks up the flavors of a dish nicely.

Spinach-chickpea-tofu skin curry

2 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
2 tsp curry powder (I used Penzey's Balti seasoning)
1 1/2 tsp amchoor (powdered sour mango)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 small tomato, diced
2 cups cooked chickpeas, or one 15-oz can
1/2 cup chickpea cooking water, if you have some
2 oz tofu skins, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 big bunch of spinach, washed thoroughly*, or one 10-oz bag of spinach

Heat the oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about two minutes. Add the garlic and cook until onion is translucent. Add the curry powder, amchoor, salt, and cumin seeds and saute for one minute. Add the tomato and saute for one minute. Add the chickpeas, chickpea water, and tofu skins and cook until liquid is reduced by about 1/3. Add the spinach in batches and cook until wilted. Serve with naan or basmati rice. You'll probably want to add a little salt at the table.

*Greens can be pretty dirty. They do, after all, grow in the ground. Gritty food is extremely icky, but this technique gets them really clean. Fill a large bowl about halfway with water. Put your unwashed greens in there and fill the bowl most of the rest of the way with water. Most of the dirt will sink right down to the bottom of the bowl. To make sure you've got everything, rinse the leaves under a light stream of tap water before wringing them out and cooking them. Of course, if you buy the pre-washed bagged stuff, you don't have to worry about this. But it's a bit more expensive, and you might get salmonella. (Note: you probably won't get salmonella.)

Miso soup

I made miso soup for the first time on Friday. It was raining cats and dogs, so soup seemed appropriate. Plus, I had bought miso a while ago and hadn't gotten around to using it yet. I threw in some extras to make it a little more substantial than your standard Japanese restaurant miso soup. Beyond the dashi and miso, everything else is optional, and you can add any other fun extras you want. I don't know very much about miso, and I forgot to write down the kind I used. It was a light brown color. I know each kind has its own flavor but are to some degree interchangeable. Dashi is Japanese kelp stock. It traditionally has bonito fish flakes in it, but I didn't add them. This was my first time making or using it, and I also added some other seaweed to the soup itself. I had only had seaweed in the form of Japanese restaurant seaweed salad, but I bought a bunch of dried seaweed in Chinatown a few months ago and have decided to explore a little bit. So far, so good.

Miso soup (adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman):
1 quart dashi (see next recipe)
1/3 cup miso
8 oz firm silken tofu, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup frozen edamame
1 carrot, cut into small rounds
1/4 cup dry hijiki seaweed, rehydrated in about 1/3 cup warm water for a few minutes

Heat the dashi in a saucepan over medium heat until it's almost boiling. Then scoop out about 1/2 a cup and mix it with the miso. Then add the miso mixture back to the dashi. Toss in the rest of the ingredients, including the water used to rehydrate the hijiki. Let it cook without boiling until the edamame is cooked to your taste.

Dashi (also from Bittman):
2 quarts of water
1 piece of kombu (kelp), about 4-6 inches (I'm a seaweed newbie, and the whole piece looked awfully big to me (about 4x10 inches or so), so I cut it in half, and it seemed to work fine.)

Put the water and dashi in a saucepan over medium heat until almost boiling. Bittman says it takes about 15 minutes. I wasn't paying attention to the time when I made it, so I don't know. I used one quart immediately in the miso soup and froze the other quart for the next batch of soup.

The next day for lunch I had leftover miso soup with spring rolls. I made a dipping sauce for the spring rolls this time: peanut butter, orange juice, rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil, and srirachi (Thai chili sauce), all to taste. I also tossed a couple leftover leaves of lacinato kale (aka dinosaur kale) into the soup. Both were good choices.

Spring rolls

Since the blog is just beginning, I think I should have a post about something that went right: spring rolls! These were for a special dinner for Jon when he got back into town after being gone for a whole week.

First, I dry-fried some firm silken tofu. I just used a nonstick pan and cooked it until it was brown on each side. I had never tried that technique before, but I was really pleased with the texture.

Next, I laid out the other fillings: apples, carrots, kohlrabi, cucumber, lettuce, asparagus, herbs, and (self-sprouted) bean sprouts. To make each roll, we soaked a wrapper in warm water until it was pliable. Then we filled it the way we wanted to and rolled it up like a burrito. It was fun because each one was different. Jon made a little dipping sauce with Hoisin sauce, Sriracha, and some other stuff. I might try a peanut-based sauce next time.

To round out the meal, I served hot and sour soup, seaweed salad, and leftover mung beans in coconut milk with jasmine rice. It was a good way to welcome him home.