Adventure Begins in the Kitchen
Breakfast: Sprouted Wheat English Muffins with Fried Eggs & Hot Sauce
Lunch: Lemon Red Pepper Edamame with Chung’s Veggie Spring Rolls & Ponzu
Dinner: Buffalo Tofu & Brussels Sprouts
Ever had one of those days where you just can’t help but smother everything you eat in hot sauce? Apparently… I do. Even my non-hot sauced lunch was spice-ified with red pepper flakes. And all that spice left me with a massive dessert craving.
What to do, what to do!
Clearly, I didn’t win the tofu press. But I have fallen in loves with pressing tofu, so heavy cookbooks and sopping paper towels will have to do for now.
I left the tofu under the massive stack of books for a little over four hours and then sliced it into crouton-esque squares.
I adapted my croutons from this recipe. I didn’t have corn meal or Italian seasoning on hand so I blended together a few things from my herb shelf.
FoodFash’s Modified Tofu Croutons
1 TSP Basil Leaves
1 TSP Rosemary
1 TSP Garlic Salt
1 TSP Oregano
2 TSP Olive Oil
12ish Ounces of Extra Firm Tofu, Pressed
Put all of the ingredients into a container with a lid and shake until all sides of the tofu are evenly coated. Some of the tofu squares may stick together, so you may have to manually separate to coat all sides of the tofu. Place on a greased cookie sheet and set on the top rack of a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 40 minutes.
You could hear the tofu “screaming” in the oven as the moisture was escaping. They also popped around the cookie sheet like little jumping beans and shriveled up quite a bit. I would have never guessed tofu to be so crispy. Random details aside, they were awesome. And if you read yesterday’s post, you know these croutons were so awesome that I ate every last square and they never made it atop a salad!
Breakfast: Key Lime Soy Yogurt, Ground Flax & Blackberries
Lunch: Spinach, Refried Bean & Nacho “Cheese” on Brown Rice Tortillas
Snackage: Homemade Coconut Oil Chocolate
Dinner Part I: Tofu Croutons
Dinner Part II: Mango, Mini (locally grown) Cukes, Pita & Homemade Hummus
I didn’t realize how many newly discovered favorite things I consumed today until uploading pictures, but here goes, starting with breakfast…
I thought the only place I could find Key Lime WholeSoy Yogurt was LA, but I found it at Rollin’ Oats over the weekend – total score!
I happened to read a Hungry Hungry Hippie post discussing Vegan Gourmet Nacho “Cheese” and was drawn to the familiar packaging at Whole Foods last night. I agree with the not great appearance and pretty good flavor, but I disagree on the meltability. Mine melted. She sliced, I finely shredded, that could be the difference. Either way, I love her blog and you should check it out!
TOFU CROUTONS!!! I modified the tofu crouton recipe from the Rollin’ Oats website for the lush dinner salad I planned on making tonight. But there was a big oops, a big one. They were so stinking good I ate all the croutons, so an entire package of tofu, before the lettuce even made it out of the fridge. See? Oops! I’ll post the modified crouton recipe tomorrow.
And then I scrambled together a few random snacks because, let’s face it, a block o’ tofu is not an acceptable dinner. The locally grown, mini cucumbers were even tastier than I had anticipated. I assumed correct that they’d be firm and lack seeds, but they had a slight sweetness to them that caught me by surprise.
What a day!
I was determined to recreate the Cafe Hey cabbage salad that I had for the first time after our yoga in the park picnic a couple weeks ago. It was SO perfect.
The problem with recreating something that you haven’t freshly eaten is… You kind of forget all of the components that made it good, and just remember good.
The other problem is ramen. Plain ramen is hard to come by and ramen soup has 48% DV of sodium – yikes! I’m hoping that using only the noodles and tossing out the flavor pack brought the sodium down to a less ridiculous percentage.
FoodFash’s Attempt at Ginger Cabbage & Ramen Salad
2 Packs of Ramen (any flavor, you’re going to ditch the salt monster)
1 Small Head of Red Cabbage, chopped
3 Green Onions, chopped
1 Handful of Sliced Almonds
3/8 Cup of Ginger Dressing
While your noodles are boiling, chop the cabbage and onion. Drain the noodles and add to the veggies. Add the almonds and dressing, then stir until dressing is evenly distributed. Voila!
My notes for next time include finely chopping the cabbage and chilling the end result for an hour or so until the noodles cool. I think the chilling time would allow more of the ginger flavor to be absorbed as well.
My fingers are crossed that Cafe Hey has this salad again soon so I can sleuth my way to the perfect Ginger Cabbage & Ramen Salad!