Weekend Cooking: Scrambled Tofu with Black Beans and Potatoes

Nothing too inspiring. Exactly as the title says. Trying really hard to eat what's in the fridge and pantry as a money saving exercise.

Weekend Cooking: Scrambled tofu

My first attempt at this stereotypical vegetarian dish. Delicious and no sticking as I had feared. Scrambled with green onions and mushrooms, this made a quick lunch with toast and cheese and a side of tomatoes. Colourful, fresh, healthy.

NSW: Day 3

Breakfast: coffee, toast with hardboiled egg, peacherine, peanuts
Lunch: curry meifun with brown rice noodles, romaine and fried tofu, tea, coffee
Dinner: chicken, potato, romaine and cucmber salad

Snacks: coffee, cookie, fruit, potato sticks, strawberry ice cream

Weekend Cooking: Panang Curry

Maesri panang curry paste with coconut milk, tofu puffs, carrots, tomatoes, beans and cauliflower makes a quick and healthy dinner. Accompanied by (slightly dry) Deep brand tandoori naan.

Variations on a teame

Left: Green tea noodles + sesame oil + creamy discs of egg tofu + crunchy fried shallots. Sesame oil overpowers the tea flavour of the noodles.

Right: Green tea noodles + ponzu sauce + fish tofu. Citrusy, light ponzu cuts the richness of the fried tofu and allows the tea flavour to shine through.

Weekend Cooking: Tofu with mushrooms and chicken

Although this looks worse than the previous wonton photo, it tasted substantially better. Tofu pockets, mushrooms, ground chicken stir-fried with soy sauce and black bean paste make a tasty topping for rice.

Weekend Cooking: Har Mok with Naan

Another Pillsbury naan, but potato this time. Spicy but otherwise rather bland. The wedge is my version of har mok with soft mashed tofu instead of seafood and some tom yum soup paste for taste. Next time must remember to add more paste as this was a little bland. The tofu gave this a smooth creamy texture.

Quick lunch

Creamy egg tofu discs with cool cucumbers and the usual soy/oyster sauce/sesame oil noodles make a regular, tasty and quick (<20 minute) lunch.

Weekday lunches

Just so this doesn't turn into a chocolate and afternoon tea blog and to prove I do eat other things, this is another recent typical lunch. I've been experimenting with bulgar lately in an effort to increase whole grain intake while minimizing cooking time. Bulgar is definitely easy to cook. However it has a fairly strong nutty, grainy smell that I'm just not used to. Fortunately most of my lunches include either a spicy paste or sauce so the flavour is masked. Some recent lunches:

Bulgar
+ Morningstar Meal Starters chicken (which looks amazingly like chicken, though the texture is slightly off)
+ green peppers
+ Szechuan sauce

Bulgar
+ canned tuna
+ Thai basil paste

Bulgar
+ tofu chigae
+ kimchee

Weekend Cooking: Tofu jigae

Tofu jigae was the first Korean dish I ever tasted at a food court in Auckland, New Zealand. It was one of the first places to get Korean food after the wave of immigration from South Korea to New Zealand began. A bubbling hot pot of strongly flavoured spicy tofu and seafood, it was so different from my experience of silken tofu in Chinese cooking. There it tends to be used in dishes where the smooth fineness of the tofu is showcased by steaming or in pristine clear broths.

This is my quick version combining bok choi kimchee, fish sauce, silken tofu, green onions, oil and chili flakes.

Weekend Cooking: Mapo tofu

There are so many variations on this classic Sichuan dish, but my favorite is the original. This paste from Chongqing in Sichuan province is the most authentic I have found, and contains the requisite numbingly hot peppers. Just add some diced shiitake mushrooms and green onions to tofu and the sauce and heat, and you're ready to go. This will be dinner and a couple of weekday lunches. Only problem is it also contains chicken/meat essence so it's not suitable for vegetarians.

This company also makes pastes for dandan noodles and zhajiang mian which are also excellent. Love the translation of the company name (unfortunately not legible in the photo) - China Chongqing Fatso Chafing Dish Condiments Factory.