Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

  I finally mastered the art of torn tofu!    I'm excited about this because I feel like I've unlocked two important skills. One is the crispy torn tofu that I've been seeing videos about. The other is the idea of pre-mixing sauce ingredients, pre-crisping my tofu, and then when we're ready to eat, it's just a matter of dumping the sauce into a hot wok, adding the tofu a minute later, and tossing it to coat the tofu. I love this takeout-style sesame sauce, but I'll be trying this with other sauces as well. The Recipe: Tofu: 2 blocks tofu 1 tsp salt 3 tb cornstarch Tear tofu into irregular chunks Wrap chunks in a kitchen towel and place in the fridge (in a bowl) for at least 1 hour to drain  Toss with salt and cornstarch Spread on baking sheets Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes, flipping partway through Sauce: (adapted from  Kitchen Sanctuary ): 1 tb sesame oil 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 tb Chinese rice wine 2 tb honey 1 tb sambal oelek 3 tb ketchip 2 tb brown suga...

  These didn't rise well for some reason, so just imagine that they did.  Another muffin post! A friend made these for the kids recently, and we loved them. I think the magic is the combination of the (freshly ground) oat flour together with some whole oats. They're also not too sweet; just perfect with the chocolate chips. The Recipe: 2 bananas 1/3 cup butter, melted 2/3 c sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 2 c oats, ground into flour 1/2 additional oats  1/3 c chocolate chips Grind the 2 c oats in the blender Add all other ingredients besides the additional oats and chocolate chips; blend Mix in the additional oats and chocolate chips Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes   The Verdict:   Overall grade:  A Overall reason:  Easy to make, great texture Time to prepare:  10 minutes of work, 25 minutes of baking Kid quote:  No quotes were uttered. They were stuffing their faces. 

  When I actually measure, instead of following my heart, the top is more craggy than this.     I made these once on a whim, and the kids loved them so much that they're in the rotation now. I worked from a recipe by  Love and Lemons  (seemed appropriate), and I make no changes aside from using gluten-free flour (usually Bob's 1-1 mix). I do feel inclined to see if they're still good with less butter and sugar, and to try to get some fiber in there (oat bran?), but I haven't experimented yet.   I do think that they would be good with more lemon zest, but I haven't bothered buying extra lemons just to zest them. I'll have to plan this together with another recipe that uses lemon juice, so I can make that happen.     The Recipe (from Love and Lemons): 2 1/4 c flour (I use gluten free 1 - 1 mix) 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 2 tb lemon zest 1 c plain yogurt 2 eggs 2/3 c sugar 1/2 c butter, melted 1/2 c milk 1/4 c lemon jui...

That one broken puffed tofu at the bottom looks like shrimp     I almost didn't write this one up as a "recipe" because I worked from a soup base and really just dumped stuff into the pot, but I want to remember this as a meal option. I did make the dipping sauce, at least.   I had previously made a few attempts at spicy hotpot, working from various spicy bases and adding Sichuan peppercorns. They tasted good but were way too oily for our liking. This time, I found a mushroom hotpot base that was a liquid packet (as opposed to the solid oily blocks we'd had before) and it's a winner. I should have taken a photo of the package.   For the sauce, I used the first option on  this page  and followed my heart for the proportions.     The Recipe: 1 hot pot base mix (I like the liquid mushroom flavor) Vegetables: I used dried shiitakes, radish,   and bok choy Proteins: I bought frozen tofu skin knots and   refrigerated pre-fried   tofu bloc...

    I don't think the photo captures how impressive it was that it perfectly fit into this container This came about for Thanksgiving, in an attempt to get fresh green vegetables without the bulk of a salad taking up half of the plate and then getting soggy next to warm food. I'd previously had broccoli salads with mayo-based dressing, but  this one from Cookie and Kate  had good reviews and used a honey mustard dressing, so I thought I'd try it. It's good! I definitely prefer it to green salad on a cluttered plate. My changes: I doubled the dressing (after haphazardly kind of increasing but not quite doubling the other ingredients), I used pepitas instead of sunflower seeds, I used pomegranate seeds instead of dried cranberries (though dried cranberries would be great too), and I omitted the optional cheese. I also added more salt to taste after mixing it all up. The Recipe (adapted from  Cookie and Kate ):  2 large heads broccoli, chopped (I omitted the s...

Looks pretty much exactly like my usual Thai stir-fries I bookmarked  this recipe by Crafty Cookbook  a long time ago, and then waited for eggplant season, and then waited to find eggplant that actually looked good enough to buy, and then I realized that I could just make it with different vegetables. Bring on the broccoli and bell peppers. Aside from the vegetable swap, I baked the tofu for simplicity, added more brown sugar, and added a hefty amount of white pepper. I didn't actually mean to put that much white pepper into it, but it was a delicious kick and I'll do it again that way on purpose.  The Recipe: 2.5 tb soy sauce 2 tb oyster sauce 1/2 tb black vinegar 3 tb brown sugar 1/2 tb grated ginger 1/2 tsp white pepper 1 block tofu, cubed and cooked (I pressed out liquid, tossed with oil and salt, and baked at 375 for 45 minutes) vegetables, chopped (I like broccoli, bell peppers, and onions) 3 cloves garlic, minced pinch of salt 2 tb avocado oil Combine soy sauce, oy...