Spring Break

Spring break was last week for me and I'm trying to enjoy the final hours of freedom. I stayed in town the whole week, which turned out to be really really awesome actually, and then made a little trippie up to Chicago. More on that later! But I got back in the wee hours of this fine Sunday morning... I had some good eats there but discovered some awesome stuff while home cookin' this week, so I thought I'd share.

Tofu can be so annoying to work with sometimes. It never seems to come out right for me, no matter how long I try or how long I press or marinade it. Grrr. Thank goodness for Miss Gliding Calm and her fabulous tofu recipe! I've had problems with the recipe before because I'm a tofu loser, but I finally figured out that it is flawless if you freeze and thaw the block of tofu! Here's my spin on it:

Gliding Calm Tofu
Serves 2

7 or 8 oz. extra-firm water-packed tofu, frozen overnight and thawed
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup (grade B)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sweet chili sauce (or use an extra teaspoon maple syrup)
lots of ginger (powdered)
a few dashes salt
a few dashes garlic powder

I used half a block of tofu and saved the other half for later. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Take your half tofu block and cut into thin slices. Blot slices with a paper towel to absorb excess moisture out of the tofu. Mix all other ingredients in a shallow, wide container and rub both sides of the tofu in this mixture! Lightly mist a baking sheet with oil, spread tofu on the sheet, and bake tofu for as long as desired. Remove when tofu is still slightly moist and place on a cooling rack (the type you use to cool cookies and baked goods). Turn oven to the broil setting and place cooling rack with tofu under the broiler for 3-4 minutes, monitoring very carefully. The tofu is done when it is browned around the edges and a little drier!

For the perfect meal, serve tofu with Trader Joe's sweet potato fries and curry ketchup (5 teaspoons ketchup + 1 teaspoon curry powder) and raw kale salad (1+ cup raw kale, rinsed, torn into bite sized pieces, and massaged; mix with 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, lots of sea salt, and black pepper; let it get all nice and cold in the fridge before eating!).

I also experienced oat bran nirvana this week. Normally I use quick steel-cut oats or thick old fashioned oats, but Jess advised me to try something new when we were on one of our Whole Foods trips. Now I'm obsessed with oat bran! All right, get ready to travel to oat bran mecca:

Carob Chip Cookie Dough Oat Bran
with peanut butter ribbons and walnuts
Serves 1

1 cup water
pinch salt
40 grams oat bran (about 1/3 cup)
1 small-medium banana
2/3 cup unsweetened soymilk
1/2 medjool date, chopped small
1 tablespoon peanut butter (I used organic freshly ground PB from the Whole Foods bulk section)
1/2 tablespoon walnuts, chopped
1 heaping tablespoon non-dairy carob chips
a few dashes cinnamon

Disclaimer: This is an oats recipe for the stovetop, not the microwave! (And thanks for the oatmeal inspiration, Katie!)

In a stove pot, bring water to a boil with some salt. Add oat bran after the water boils and stir with a spatula. After the oats reduce a little, turn the heat down to medium-high and add your banana, sliced very thinly. Whip the banana into the oat bran and turn the heat to medium after a minute or so.

Add the soymilk to the pot, little by little -- think risotto technique. After the oat bran accepts the soymilk and everything reduces, add a splash more of soymilk. Throw the chopped date into the pot and keep stirrin'. Yay, isn't making oats fun?!

After the oat bran achieves a thicker consistency, turn heat to medium-low and plop some cinnamon into the pot and stir, stir, stir. When the oats reach your desired consistency (I like mine on the thicker, slow-pouring end of the spectrum), cover the pot and turn the heat off. Let sit while you "toast" your walnuts: I heat my chopped ones in the microwave for 40 seconds. You'll have to adjust the time based on your microwave, because 40 seconds in different microwaves may burn your precious nuts. Hahaha.

Pour half the oats into your serving bowl. Add about half your carob chips to the pot and stir so that the chips melt. Plop this melty mixture into your bowl, too. Top the oat bran with a few more carob chips (save some of them!) and the walnuts. Swirl a small chunk of your peanut butter into the top layer of the oats. It's like a peanut butter swirl ribbon!

You can garnish the oats with more carob chips and peanut butter after you finish the top layer. Fun! And the best part is, this totally tastes like a Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Milkshake from the Chicago Diner!

Ohh, and here's a breakfast I made the other day!

This is a fourth of the recipe for some Vegan with a Vengeance muffins, and they were all mine! I like to make small batches of things because it's fun, and it's easier to quality-control for me because I'm used to small batches. And I hate having baked goods laying around idle (as in, not in my tummy), so there you go!

I also made an espresso drink -- I tend to do a hybrid of a soy latte and soy cappuccino. I like to rip off pieces of muffin and dip it in the cappuccino. Anyway, I made carrot ginger almond muffins. I just combined two of the VwaV recipes (the carrot raisin muffins and ginger raisin bran muffins) and added some crystallized ginger in addition to the ginger already present in the recipe. 'Twas yummy, especially with little pats of Earth Balance in the middle of the fresh-outta-the-oven muffins! Yay for leisurely breakfasts!

I'll be back soon with another Chicago post! Yay.