Recent Discoveries: A slice of tofu and a slice of life

Southern Fusion Broiled Tofu

Easy, simple, and tasty.  Take a block of tofu and press it in a tofu press, or do what I do and wrap it in a dishtowel and pile a plate and about ten pounds of cookbooks on it, then leave it there for 20 minutes.  This will press out some of the moisture, leaving your tofu slightly denser and more able to absorb marinade.

Cut the tofu into quarter-inch-thick slices.

Whip a quick marinade of approximately one part hoisin sauce (or similar dark, thick Asian sauces might work) and three parts commercial sweet tea (use the good stuff; I used Beacon Drive-Inn's signature iced tea).  Make just enough to coat your tofu.

Drop your tofu in the marinade in a sealed container, roll it around until the slices are coated, and leave it in the fridge for an hour or two, turning it over every so often.

Lay the slices on a lightly greased cookie sheet and broil them five minutes.  Turn over and broil another five minutes.  Serve hot, with hoisin sauce for dipping.

The flavor is weird but delicious, sort of piquant and hard to identify, and the texture is a delightful mating of crispy and chewy with soft, and a touch of crunch round the edges.  Hey, I wonder if you could cut shapes out of them!

---

Unrelatedly, a thing I found out while I was doing copywriting research: Someone on the internet is trying to get marijuana smokers to report how many zippy bags they use for their stash each week.  He (I'm assuming it's a man, but I don't know why) will then work out how many zippy bags are used for this purpose nationwide, and report his findings to Ziploc in hopes of gaining corporate backing for the next push to legalize marijuana.  And this is why I love the weird world of the internet.

"Bless my eyes! Fresh hot ... "

Not leftover, but definitely lazy.  As of mid-February I now bake all of the bread for our household.

I am a big fan of food that I can make ahead of time and have last a while; I'm happiest when I can have one big, traditional, flour-coated apron-wearing "baking day" and then have homemade food to serve and eat for several days.

When I was doing my last quarter of school with my double-schedule-and-a-job-and-a-commute nightmare, weekends were a respite, sort of.  I spent them engaged in computer games (I still own, play and love my legacy neighborhood in The Sims 2, where a number of refugees from great works of literature, like Aldonza and Sancho, Count Fosco and Marian Halcombe, Bess and her eponymous Highwayman, have bred and interbred and I now have their grandchildren populating my pixellated dollhouses.  Awesome and absorbing time sink).  But weekends weren't actually relaxing as such.  They were just -- two days when I didn't actually have to drive forty-five minutes to do six to nine unbroken hours of punishing mental work and then drive home in rush-hour traffic to scribble and pound out my homework until I fell into bed.

On a related note, I tend to get a bit steamy when people are vocal about thinking that college students are, as a breed, lazy.

Now, weekends are different.  In my own home, with my workspace set up and control over the grocery list, weekends are glorious timeless stretches of beading and baking interspersed with five-dollar DVDs from Ingles, snuggling with Megan, drinking moderate amounts of sweet froofy martinis, and lovely-anxiously tending my garden.

Anyhow.  This all started with the bread.

As an example, I spent last Saturday preparing the following:
1. Fresh artisan bread
2. Miniature mushroom quiches
3. Caramel nut sticky buns
4. Artichoke cheese dip
5. Corn and bean salad
6. Apple cider pasta salad

Each a family recipe -- except the bread.  And oh god the bread.  M and I have never agreed upon a type of bread, but I am pleased to report those days well over.

The recipe, from Mother Earth News and written in this delightful vintage-advert tone, is here.  Read it.  Use it.  Love it.  The pizza peel and baking stone are not necessary; parchment paper on a cookie sheet works just fine.  The bread is moist and tangy with a delicious sourdough-like texture and flavor.  One orange-sized ball yields a loaf large enough for both of us to get crusty, satisfying sandwiches and dip the heels in jam or artichoke dip or plain cream cheese for a flavorful snack.  I've learned I need to do a spare loaf that we can eat warm.  Without butter.  That's how good this bread is.

We've figured out that all the bread costs us about $5 a month to make, and takes about half an hour's work once a week.

So.  For no particular reason.  Have a special offer.  When you mention that one blog post about the bread between now and Monday, March 28, 2011, get 10% off any purchase of $20.00 or more.


Available here.

M has just awarded me a Housewife Merit Badge.  She assures me that they are in fact equilateral triangles like Girl Scout patches.  Success!

Delicious Chickeny Stuff: A Lazy Leftover Recipe, with Divers Variations

or, Some of the Infinite Ways to Use Up Canned Chicken You Got on Sale

My irregular "Lazy Leftover Recipes" feature is part of my attempt to pretend this is a big-girl jewelry blog while maintaining a general air of casualness. Steps are in haphazard order and measurements are not "cups" and "pinches," but "some" and "enough." You have been warned.

1. Lazy Leftover Low-Fat Chicken Goodness
Contains: protein, vegetables, goodness

-1 large can of canned/tinned chicken
-about 1/3 container (3-4 big spoonfuls) red pepper hummus (or any other flavor)
-some leftover red onion
-half a spoonful of mayonnaise or mayo

Mix together the leftover hummus with the chicken. Add the mayo to cream it slightly (the hummus has insufficient fat to act as a binder). Chop in onion to taste (we use about two slices). Serve on Wheat Thins or toast. Accept compliments gracefully. Of course you flavor it yourself.


Variations:
-If you don't care about the Low-Fat part, use blue cheese dressing instead of hummus.
-Add some shredded cheese. If it's pre-shredded you'll need more mayo to combat the corn starch they add to the bag.
-Spread it on a sandwich, add a slice of cheese and perhaps a tomato and grill it in a Foreman grill, panini press or in a pan for one of the classier-looking variations on the "gritch."

Lazy Leftover Late Lunch Recipe

Corned Beef Sandwiches and Browned Butter Mac and Cheese

All the big-girl jewelry blogs have recipes. They say the regular readers (and I know I have some other than the spambot; Google Analytics reveals you!) like it. This is my very special version of that: Partly because I use the "food" setting on my somewhat-trusty Polariod i1036 for jewelry photos and I'm idly curious to see if it works as well for, you know, food. Partly because I am a slave to "How to Get Blog Traffic" tip lists. Partly because I feel like blogging today, and as soon as the temperatures hit the 90s, M decided she was craving about four different kinds of hot food, and I needed something semi-quick and cheap for in between the corned beef and the Alton Brown-recipe borscht.

And this manner of prepping mac and cheese is actually better, and it may be de rigeur somewhere, but it's different from how I learned it.

In this recipe:
Protein
Starch
Optional veggies
A pseudo-gourmet take on Kraft
Prep time: 10-20 minutes
Serves 2 hungry people
Suitable for hearty late lunch

Recipe after the jump!