best frenemies

There are a few super-smart folks in the world who excel at every academic subject from math to french with a little creative writing and chemistry thrown in for extra flavor.  I am not one of those people.  I got by for a while, but by high school I needed a tutor to pass math and managed to pass chemistry by one percentage point.  I'm definitely a liberal arts kinda gal.

The laws in Pennsylvania say that I had to take science and math until the end of my junior year.  You can bet my senior year of high school including such challenging math courses as British Literature and Creative Writing, while I struggled through my science course, also known as French.

What I'm trying to say is, me and math?  We don't get along.

Nevertheless, we're going to start today's post with a little math - everyone's favorite, word problems.  Ready?  Here we go!

Coconut Milk + Lime = BFFs times infinity

Coconut Milk + Tomatoes and their juices = relatively tolerable

Coconut Milk + Tomatoes + Lime = this will never happen again

In case you couldn't put 2+2 together, tonight's dinner was Pineapple Curry Tofu from the new Clean Eating magazine.  In theory, it sounded at least a little daring, but I figured I like tofu, we like pineapple, and Mister loves curry, so this should work, right?

Not so much.

It wasn't awful - I shouldn't let you think that.  There was just something about it that didn't work.  I'm pretty sure it was the final addition of 2 Tbsp lime juice.  Tomatoes are relatively acidic, and when you add harissa in place of asian chili sauce, they get hot and acidic.  The perfect foil seems quite obviously to be the thick, creamy, cooling (heat-distributing) coconut milk and I think it could have been, if only I hadn't actually followed the recipe.  I think the sneaky frenemy was the lime juice.  It seemed like such an innocent invitation, but what happened was that it enhanced the tartness and acidity of the tomatoes to such a point that the harissa made the whole thing hotter than it needed to be and a little unpleasant.  Although there was nice bland tofu and delicious chunks of pineapple and red pepper, all I could taste was tomato.

By the way - me and flour-coated tofu?  Also best frenemies.  I really want it to work - I want my tofu to look like the tofu in the magazine, all crispy and evenly coated.  My problem is that the minute I stir the tofu, all the "breading" adheres to the spatula, turning its back on the tofu like a 7th grade girl.

if I didn't have bad luck...

...I wouldn't have any fun stories to tell! I am somewhat convinced that I am only wearing my apron because it says "bitch, bitch, bitch" on it and it's black. Tonight's adventures proved that it doesn't necessarily protect me from flying food the way an apron might protect someone else from flying food. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I know that one minute I was [not so gently] squeezing a quarter of a lime over the soup pot and the next minute I was trying to extract the lime pulp from where it had flown beneath my apron. I didn't even know there was enough space between my sweater and the apron, tied quite snugly around my body, but there was evidently just enough space for a chunk of lime to wedge itself in there and hang out around my belly.

All this fun ended with a delightful and surprising Roasted Yellow Pepper and Corn Bisque from Veganomicon. It didn't take the full amount of time estimated in the cookbook because I used pre-roasted yellow peppers. The soup actually only simmers for 20 minutes once all the yellowy goodness is piled in the pot and brought to boiling. Then the real fun begins - the part you really like if you like kitchen toys: I got to use my immersion blender. By the way, immersion blenders, much like conventional blenders, have different settings from "gentle stirring" to "deadly mutilation." Make sure to check where yours is set before you turn it on and splatter bisque all over your stove, counter, and self.

I served up this pretty yellow soup with what was left of the crusty bread from the farmers market. Good thing, too - it turns out nutmeg can be rather hot when added to soup in sufficient quantities. That surprised the heck out of me.

Also, there are only 12 days left to vote in my poll - I want your feedback! Please let me know someone is actually reading this and vote and/or leave me a comment!

vegan not-even-close-to-express

After two weeks of relatively quickly prepared meals, I got spoiled and kind of lost my patience with dinner... Granted, dinner still took only a little longer than an hour, all said, but it just felt like it took so much longer. Jambalaya night should be fun...I know from my other recipe to not expect to eat that for an hour and a half after the cookbook opens.

Tonight's dinner was Baked Tofu with Coconut-Lime Sauce accompanied by a simple soy-sauce stirfry of yellow and orange bell pepper strips with chopped bok choy (thanks for the tip, Vegan Express!) It was very pretty, if not time consuming. It wasn't really labor intensive, though - the tofu baked for an hour and only needed attending once every 15 minutes; the sauce simmered nicely without my constant guidance, and once the vegetables were chopped it only took a few minutes to cook them. Perhaps it was the lack of activity that made it feel long. Perhaps I should have used my downtime to call my mother and apologize for being an ingrate (if you don't get that, go back and read my review of Veganomicon again).

Anyway, eventually it was done and pretty and garnered compliments from Mister, which was especially important, since this is another one of my own creations. So I present to you,

Baked Tofu with Coconut-Lime Sauce

Ingredients:
14 oz firm tofu
2 Tbsp peanut oil
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp apple cider or rice wine vinegar
15 oz lite coconut milk
4 oz apple juice
1/2 Tbsp sugar
zest of one lime
pinch of salt
2 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in a little warm water

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray a baking pan with cooking spray. Slice tofu crosswise into 8 slices and pat dry with towels. Lay tofu slices in baking dish. In a small bowl or measuring cup, combing peanut oil, soy sauce, and vinegar with a whisk, then drizzle evenly over the tofu slices in the baking dish.
Bake, uncovered, for one hour, flipping the tofu every 15 minutes and tipping the baking dish to redistribute the juices.
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine coconut milk, apple juice, lime zest, sugar, and salt and bring to a simmer, not a boil. Simmer about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has reduced by about half its volume. Combine cornstarch and water in a small bowl and stir until smooth, then add to sauce and stir until thickened. Continue to cook, stirring more frequently, for about 10 minutes more.
By now the tofu should be finished cooking. Remove sauce from heat, arrange tofu slices on a plate or serving platter and ladle sauce down the center of the slices to serve.

Enjoy! Mister said it tasted exotic - the lime is delightfully noticeable without being overpowering. I was originally planning on squeezing the lime juice in as well, but it was quite strong without it, so I think that would have been a bit much. I also wish the sauce had thickened and reduced a little bit more, but like I said, I lost my patience with it and called a draw.