Tofu with Peppers and Pecans

Hey, this is a really delicious tofu recipe. I can't remember where I modified it from, but we had it last week and really enjoyed it. Dad served one of his home-grown salads with it.

Tofu with Peppers and Pecans

1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons vermouth or sherry
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice or rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, crushed
Red pepper flakes to taste
¾ cup vegetable broth

Mix above ingredients for seasoning sauce and set aside.

Prepare 1 tub firm tofu and set aside (cut into slices, drain, pat dry, brush lightly with oil, and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes per side.) Cut into strips or cubes.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 red, green, or yellow bell peppers, cut in strips
4 green onions, cut in 1-inch diagonals
¾ cup pecan halves

Sauté peppers and green onions in oil for 2 minutes. Add pecans and sauté 2 minutes more. Add seasoning sauce and stir until boiling and thickened. Stir in tofu and heat. Serve with rice.

Stir Fried Shrimp and Vegetables

Tonight I made a pretty good stir fry with shrimp, snow peas, spinach, and rice noodles (and of course garlic and jalapenos). I served it with some baked tofu topped with your peanut sauce.

What I like about this meal was the number of things that came from our garden: spinach, snow peas, cilantro, basil, jalapenos, green onions, and lettuce.

Back to the Stove

I cooked last night, Manhattan in hand, and felt immeasurably better.

I made a vaguely Thai stir fry of pork, tofu, onion, garlic, purple cabbage from the garden, red bell pepper, green beans, cilantro, and rice noodles. I marinated the pork first in sugar and fish sauce. For sauce I used a blend of fish sauce, chile-garlic paste, and water. Not bad. The whole thing was slightly greasy, but at least it was homemade and home-chopped and very therapeutic to make.

I don't know how it got to be late December. Fortunately, I get to spend the next week cooking. Should be fun. A buche de Noël, lemon meringue pie, tamales, huevos rancheros, Anasazi beans...I'll keep you posted.

Thai Pork and Tofu Stir Fry

My stir frying is getting better, bit by bit. Again I used the largest skillet we have instead of the wok because of our stupid smooth-topped stove. The skillet allows for much more surface contact with the stove. However, the skillet is well-seasoned, but not as perfectly as the wok, so unfortunately I think I use more oil with it than I would with a wok. The larger base makes for more oil, too. But it's still a better option for getting a hot, hot pan and maneuvering it on and off the heat.

This was not a super-official recipe, just a combination of a Mai Pham recipe and things from a few other Thai cookbooks.

I marinated some pork chunks in lime juice, fish sauce, and lime zest. I used rib meat but removed most of the fat.

I sliced the tofu, sprayed it with olive oil cooking spray, and baked the pieces at 400 for about 15 minutes, then sprinkled it with a little shoyu. I could have stir-fried it, too, but I wanted that toasty dryness it gets from being baked -- I thought that would soak up the stir-fry flavors better.

I heated peanut oil until it smoked and stir-fried the pork, then removed it.

I then stir-fried a Vidalia onion cut into rings, several Thai and one Japanese eggplant from the garden, assorted fresh red garden chiles of varying degrees of heat, one clove of garlic, and about 1/2 cup of Thai basil. (I prepped all this beforehand, of course.)

I added half a standard package of rice noodles, which had been soaking in hot water for half an hour before I drained them and gave them a minute or two to dry. Those noodles really, really wanted to stick to the skillet, but I added a little more oil and stirred well. Not letting up here was important: those noodles have to be chewy, chewy, chewy or there's no point in stir-frying rice noodles.

Toward the end I added the pork and tofu, poured in a sauce made of fish sauce, shoyu, and sugar, and tossed in another 1/2 cup of Thai basil. Because it wasn't picante enough, I added some dried red pepper flakes, too.

It was delicious, but it can be much better. I'll keep working.