Macadamia Tofu with Orange-Ginger Sauce

This made for some superb tofu, and the sauce was a delicious accompaniment. I am still searching for a way to make yummy coconut rice that tastes like coconut and isn’t gummy or just plain yucky. The original recipe was from Sunset magazine, myrecipes.com. I have made a ton of changes to the original. Oh, and this is in no way a “healthy” recipe!!! But oh so yummy…

Sauce
1 Tbsp. each butter and peanut oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 ½ Tbsp each chopped ginger and garlic
1 cup vegetable broth
¼ cup dry sherry or other white wine
½ cup orange juice (2 oranges if fresh squeezed)
½ tsp soy sauce
Tofu
Juice from ½ lemon
1 tsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp mirin
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup each, AP flour and coconut milk
1 cup finely chopped macadamia nuts (use food processor)
1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1 pound pressed, firm tofu sliced into 8 pieces
¼ tsp each salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. each butter and peanut oil

1. Marinate tofu in lemon juice, soy sauce, mirin and garlic.
2. Prepare sauce: heat 1 Tbsp each butter and oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, ginger and garlic, cooking until beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Pour in broth, wine and orange juice. Boil until reduced by half, 8-10 minutes.
3. Pour mixture into blender or use immersion blender. Be careful as it is very hot! Stir in coconut milk and soy sauce, reheating as necessary.
4. Put flour and coconut milk in separate wide, shallow bowls. In another bowl, mix nuts, bread crumbs, salt and pepper.
5. Dredge tofu in flour, shaking off excess; dip into coconut milk, letting excess drip off; then press into nut mixture to coat on all sides. Reserve coconut milk. Heat 2 Tbsp each butter and oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Cook tofu in a single layer until golden brown on the bottom, 3-4 minutes. With a spatula, turn pieces carefully, brown on the other side, 2-3 minutes longer.
6. Serve tofu with sauce & plain or coconut rice.

Finally ready to get some cooking done!

Baby #2 is now one month old, and I've finally had a chance to cook. The new baby has been adjusting well to life on the outside, and big sister is a happy little toddler. Having my mom to play with the bean also gives me time to grocery shop and get cooking done. Today was a cooking marathon. I did some prep work earlier in the week, so I could do more cooking and less chopping today. Breakfast was soyrizo scramble with roasted potatoes. I didn't grab a shot of the scramble because I thought I already blogged about it once, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The recipe definitely needs refining, as well. The roasted potatoes were from the brand new and Fabulous Vegan Brunch, probably the most basic of recipes to try, but delish nonetheless. Today's lunch was lentil soup (Veganomicon) and bruschetta (from my brain). My genius husband thought of using the pressure cooker for the soup and it was totally ready in a 1/2 hour. The lentils were super fluffy too, giving the soup a really light texture. I followed the directions from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure to make sure I timed the lentils right.

Then after my nap, it was ready to tackle the big project: Almost All-American Pot Pie (Veganomicon). I knew this would be labor intensive since it has a crust, and boy was it. The crust wasn't even the time consuming part! That was ready in 5 minutes, and the whole wheat/cornmeal crust was soooo yummy. Unfortunately, the 1/2 cup of shortening negates the "health" factor of the whole grain... The crust rolled out easily and held together really well. I popped it in the fridge to get the filling ready.

The filling was based on a chickpea flour roux, into to which the veggies were sauteed. That seemed a little strange and dry, but once the wine and veggie broth were added to deglaze, the gravy came together in a snap. I was worried about it being too soupy, so I think I over-reduced the gravy, but it wasn't too dry either.

I would have liked to spend more time making a pretty crust edge, but just as I was laying it down, Miss Baby decided to awaken and holler for dinner. I just had time to slap it over the filling and shove it in the oven.


And here it is, the final result. This crazy angle might not be too flattering, but was a tasty, tasty pot pie. The crust was hearty and light at the same time, and the filling was perfectly savory. I really wish I'd paced myself, I'm stuffed!

By the way, the little bean told me "Mom, you are such a good cooker" today. Made my DAY.

Well, we haaaave been cooking...why no posts?

My food photography is just sub-par. Sigh. And I'm not sure if I should post things without pictures or not. And my last post I had a bit 'o trouble with the photos showing up properly, so we'll see how things go today. I just returned from a weekday getaway with the little bean, a last hurrah before her little beanie baby sister arrives. We spent the night up in Seal Beach, went swimming in the relatively heated pool, and just all around had fun. Of course, there was food involved!

I am pleased to present a photo of one of my favorite foods on earth: the blackened-mushroom-tofu burger with everything, from Taco Loco. Oh man, I could eat these everyday! The weather was beautiful for easting outside, and the bean polished off the few mushrooms that fell out of this messy concoction while I was eating. I can see the beginnning of the rice-mess she made of her beans/rice bowl. The funniest thing, I don't even particularly like mushrooms. At all. And this is just the tastiest meal around. Too bad you are so far away, Laguna Beach!

And this is a recent butternut squash curry. Dang, this turned out well. I'm still working on an official recipe for my files, but I've made it twice and it is really tasty. It is fairly mono-chromatic, but the peas help with that. I have also been using my pressure cooker for beans almost every time, but these garbanzos are from TJ's. The squash was quite elderly, a gift from back in november from G's uncle, but it was still tasty. I roasted it in the oven and stirred it in after the onions carrots and garbanzos cooked through. The sauce is cumin based, with about 1/2 cup of coconut milk for richness and yumminess. (SP?)

Spring is finally here

What a long winter this has been, and baby bean has been sick the last few weeks of it. It is awesome to be able to play outside and enjoy this wonderful sunny weather.
I've been cooking a lot lately, getting ready to really multitask when baby bean #2 arrives in a couple months. Of course, I mention I've been cooking a lot, and what are my first pix of? Restaurant food! Our favorite houseguest, Auntie Lauren, was here a couple weekends ago, and we went to El Callejon in Encinitas. They have a separate veggie menu, which is rare for any type of restaurant, especially mexican. The first plate is the avocado torta, full of fresh avo and served on a great telera roll. I am very partial to the black bean soup, which comes with crispy tortilla strips and crema for garnish, and I have to add some of their fresh salsa on top. Soooo yummy.
The last plate is the veggie combo plate (not exact name), with some super delicious rajas y queso tacos. Rajas are peppers, and they go very well with queso. Yummy yum yum!

Ok, so here is some of the stuff I've been cooking up. Not too much has turned out photogenic, but everything has been tasty. The spaghetti and beanballs (Veganomicon) were really great, I fried the beanballs and everything so they got super crispy. I usually bake them in the oven, for a slightly healthier option. And the final item is my amazing first attempt at a tart. I borrowed the tart pan from my MIL, and I modified a rhubarb tart recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess so I could use my fresh strawberries from San Juan Capistrano. Holey moley, this is yummy, and just keeps getting better in the fridge (way too rich and full of cream cheese to be finished in a day). I'm just so happy that it came out of the tart pan, and even happier that it looks and tastes good :)

Edamame Veggie Burgers

On Chinese New Year, I went all out, so we didn't have to go out!
From the left, first I prepared a thai-ish cucumber salad. Just thinly sliced cucumber, red bell pepper, red onion, peanuts, cilantro, rice wine vinegar and a bit of sesame oil.
At the top, that is Trader Joe's Beijing Style frozen veggies. I think it is a hoisin-based sauce and I love it. On the right is a disappointing veggie fried rice. I didn't over season it for the baby, but then I didn't really season it enough at all. Sigh. The bottom dish is my all-time favorite, salt and pepper tofu. The recipe can be found here. Deep fried tofu. Can't beat it.

I rarely even check the food network website for meal ideas, not too many vegetarian options. But I stumbled upon the Edamame Veggie Burger recipe. These were definitely not "easy" as advertised, but they were really tasty and different.

The biggest replacements I made: using quinoa instead of millet (tried the millet, it didn't work per their instructions), and stirring in the cooked quinoa into the other blended ingredients. I didn't want the quinoa to turn to a mush pile. I also reduced the amount of fresh ginger, in case the little bean wanted to try some. Which she didn't. She ate a cup of plain edamame instead. G and I enjoyed these patties with a healthy dose of Sri Ra Cha, and a bit of yogurt sauce (plain yogurt, chopped cilantro and mint and a dash of salt and pepper).

I also have been having a huge sweet tooth, and with my gestational diabetes, that ain't easy to quench. So I stirred up the peanut butter cookies from a recent edition Betty Crocker cookbook. They turned out just great, and didn't seem to throw my blood sugar into a tizzy. The little bean was disappointed at first since they didn't have sprinkles (Xmas cookies still alive in her brain), but she ate 2 for snack. Mmmmm, organic salmonella-free homemade peanut butter cookies. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of those beauties.

Back from blogging hiatus

It has been a really crazy couple 'o months in the veggieknife household, so I took a long break from the computer in general. My email inbox is on its way to being cleaned out, the pictures are posted on our family's website...I'm making progress.

Anyway, I have all good intentions in keeping up with the blog, but since mr. veggieknife returns to work this week, I'll have to see how my schedule goes. I am also totally over the morning sickness & am much less fatigued this trimester, so I should be cooking more and more. It might also be of minor interest to folks to see what a diabetic vegetarian pregnant lady eats. Maybe?

Greetings from DC

We have been in DC for a couple of days now, and the trip is going really well. The flight was a non-stop and very easy and almost fun. Great, funny crew on Southwest and really nice neighbor passengers. Little bean played and napped and the flight was over in a jiffy. Her aunty picked us up at BWI, saving us a lot of hassle. We only brought 2 carry on suitcases and the stroller, but that was enough to handle.

Saturday morning we walked down to Eastern Market. The farmer's market was very busy, and there was some beautiful produce.


We bought local lettuce, tomatos, pears, zucchini and a huge stalk of gorgeous broccoli. We stopped at a stand run by an ecuadorian guy and purchased a couple of really random knitted finger puppets: a buzzard (bean's choice) and an alpaca (my choice). The seller was stoked that I spoke spanish to him. And I was stoked that I could! G cooked a delicious pasta primavera with the fresh veggies and made a great salad too. Just delicious...we cleaned our plates.

The little bean has pretty much decided to reject the time change, so we go to bed late and sleep late too. Auntie has been very flexible with our wacky schedule, but keeping the bean happy is our first priority. We woke up to the delicious cinnamony aroma of Creme brulee french toast!


Sunday was designated for apple-picking. We stopped at the world's busiest most cramped Whole Foods to get a picnic then kept heading west to Homestead Farms. I was a little nervous when we arrived because it looked sooooo busy with lots of cars in the dirt lot. But the orchards were so large it was no hassle at all. Little bean and dad stalked people in the lot for a discarded wheelbarrow and we were off and running! The farm didn't have any Honey Crisp apples, but they did have Sun Crisp and Sun Fujis. We also picked Red Delicious, which although usually gross in my opinion were sweet and juicy. Cameo, Staymans and Pink Lady round out the list. How many apples did we pick???? Can you guess???? My guess was right on target.










We also picked a couple cute pumpkins, little but still to "heavfy" for the bean. We picnicked in one of the orchard rows and watched the hay riders heading to the pumkin patch. Just a really fun day. Dinner was nachos and they were yummy too. Today, Monday, we are off to the National Zoo!
PS- It was 30 pounds!!!!!!