Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

The best part of this plate of banchan (even though it's not Korean) Now that Yi Shen is closed, I needed to learn to make lemongrass tofu. I chose to work from  this recipe by the Viet Vegan  because her picture looks exactly like the old Yi Shen tofu that I was craving. Note that my picture does NOT look that way, because I baked the tofu until crispy all around rather than frying the block and slicing it, but maybe I'll try that one day. The only real change I made was that I skipped the onion/shallot, though that would be good next time. I also used coconut aminos because my only other soy sauce option at the moment is a gluten-free tamari that I don't love. It was really good with coconut aminos, so I'll have to see if Kikkoman can stand up to this deliciousness or if the coconut aminos are here to stay. And I worked from a tube of lemongrass paste because the lemongrass in my garden still looks sad, but fresh lemongrass is a goal for next time. The Recipe (adapted...

I don't know how to take a good photo of a muffin. The 4-year-old has been requesting carrot muffins for a while now. I used  Cookie and Kate's recipe  as a guideline, but made several changes:  - I substituted wheat flour for Bob's Red Mill 1:1 gluten-free flour - Instead of 1 3/4 cups of flour, I used 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of quick-cooking oats - I skipped the ginger and nutmeg, and went heavy on the cinnamon instead - I didn't measure the amount of carrots I ended up with, but I'm pretty sure it was more - I skipped the walnuts and went heavy on the raisins - I added a little bit of brown sugar and skipped the turbinado sugar on top - I used vegetable oil instead of coconut oil - I disregarded the instructions about adding things in a certain order, and instead dumped everything into a bowl at once and then mixed. The fact that I didn't use coconut oil helped this (I had nothing that was prone to solidifying), and also the fact that I had no gluten in the ...

I had seconds. I saw  this video on Yeung Man Cooking  for rice and black beans, Chinese style, and I was intrigued because I've never had such a thing. I had most of the ingredients, or at least suitable substitutions for the ingredients, with the exception of the doubanjiang. Now I have a jar of that, so more Szechuan-style recipes may be in my future. My changes to the original recipe: I used jalapenos instead of the fresno pepper, I used regular soy sauce instead of the dark soy sauce, and I used avocado oil plus a but of chili crisp instead of chili oil. I may get some chili oil in the future, because I imagine that that would give it a different flavor. I added a splash of chinese cooking wine because I felt like it needed a tiny bit of sweetness and acidity, which I think was a good move. I also doubled the recipe, more or less. The Recipe: 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 inch ginger, chopped 1 large onion, chopped 2 jalapeno peppers or fresno peppers, seeds removed and mince...