Tofu Stir Fry Experiment

Last night the Jar and I decided to use up some leftover veggies and tofu and make a delicious stir-fry. This was our first attempt at improvising a stir fry recipe. I've been trying to make my own recipes more these days and we have enough experience with stir fry (we had a year or so of eating almost nothing but stir fry) that I thought I would give it a shot. Jar wanted something spicy, so we added a serrano pepper to the mix and some chili garlic sauce to the sauce. This is really quite easy and you could substitute any bottled or prepared sauce you like.


Ingredients:
Peanut oil
1 block of extra-firm tofu
Assorted vegetables including: broccoli, carrots, onions, zucchini, bean sprouts, hot peppers (optional)
garlic
ginger

Sauce:
soy sauce
mirin
chili and garlic sauce
peanut oil
cornstarch
water

First fry the tofu in peanut oil over medium heat until it is nice and brown on the outside. Remove the tofu from the pan with a slotted spoon.


The peanut oil will add a really nice flavor to the tofu. You'll want to make sure you have all of your vegetables chopped to the size you want them and your sauce put together because the stir fry goes pretty quickly.

Next, add more oil to the pan (peanut or vegetable), fry the onions, hot pepper (if using) and any ginger over medium high heat for a few minutes. Add any other vegetables and fry for a few minutes longer.


When you're comfortable with the crunchiness of your vegetables, return the tofu to the pan, add the sauce and cook for a few minutes longer until the sauce thickens, serve with rice, and enjoy!

Breakfast for Dinner Party

Jar and I recently celebrated the successful completion of his general exams (known as qualifying exams at normal schools) by throwing a breakfast for dinner party. As you can tell from the first post on this blog, Jar and I love breakfast and we particularly love pancakes. Since I spend the weekends perfecting my pancake craft, I thought there would be no better way to celebrate than sharing these delicious breakfast treats.

I found a recipe for this "Pumpkin French Toast Brulee"in a local New Jersey newspaper. I was quite hesitant to try "newspaper food," but by all accounts it turned out delicious. I will not even attempt to post a recipe here, in case anyone who ate it is reading. Let's just say that both whole milk and cream were involved. Oh, and 8 or so eggs...


As previously mentioned, pancakes were also served. Here I am working at my craft. Special thanks to Eliza for buying us that wonderful griddle for our wedding. It has tremendously improved my pancake-making ability.


Everyone claimed to love the pancakes. Three varieties were on the menu: chocolate chip, banana chocolate chip, and blueberry. All were made with buttermilk. Luckily for me everyone was pretty much stuffed by the time the blueberry ones were finished, so I indulged in quite a few.

We also served up some delicious "spicy home fries" from our favorite Bengali cookbook. I had planned on offering eggs to order as well as waffles, but the amount of food was already as much as many could handle.

The drink of the night was coffee, mostly Irish. We recently discovered St. Brennan's Irish Cream but had some Godiva stuff as well thanks to Kelsey. Tony did a little research on real "Irish coffee" and brought a bottle of real Irish whiskey.

It was a fun night and hopefully we can do it again in the near future. Congratulations to the Jar for remaining gainfully employed!

Doughnuts from Strangers

On a recent expedition to the great Midwest, I was faced with a moral dilemma.

I was on the way back from a late-ish concert with some friends, D and T. We were feeling like we were way too old be out that late (approximately 11pm) and just wanted to catch the next train home. What could go wrong at a metro station late at night, you ask?

A group of middle aged football fans who had been partying way more than us crashed our lethargic wait for the train. A very nice (very drunk) man who was charged with carrying the doughnuts for the group had obviously tired of this grave responsibility and begged us to help him out by taking a couple. D and I showed no interest whatsoever (obviously raised to avoid taking candy from strangers), but drunken doughnut carrier found a friend in T. He perked up when offered a doughnut and somehow ended up with the entire box. Needless to say the rest of the group was quite miffed when they saw T on the train with their doughnuts.

Would you eat doughnuts from a drunken but harmless middle aged man you had just met on the train? I thought that I wouldn't... and didn't all night. But the lure of those glazed, sugared, trans-fat free doughnuts was too much for me when I awoke in the morning. I ate two train doughnuts. This is a shame I must now live with forever...

Pancakes!

Pancakes are one of my favorite breakfast foods. I've tinkered with this recipe to make it lower in sugar and fat. Spread peanut butter over your finished pancakes for extra protein.

Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

In a large bowl mix together flour, baking powder, and sugar. In a separate bowl beat the egg and stir in the milk and vegetable oil. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients, taking care not to stir too much. Pour 1/4 cup (for smaller pancakes)or 1/2 cup (for larger pancakes) onto a greased griddle or pan. Flip when the pancakes start to form bubbles and serve with maple syrup or peanut butter.

Variations:
Chocolate chip pancakes - just add 1/3 cup of chocolate chips to dry ingredients
Banana pancakes - add 1 mashed banana to wet ingredients
Chocolate chip banana pancakes - add both!