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What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
Tofu, tofu, and more tofu. In various different sauces.
The more I cook the more I appreciate simple veggie dishes. Roasted or steamed broccoli tends to turn out better than pretty much anything I cook, and I appreciate Tofu for the texture and ability to absorb flavors from the sauce you put it in.
That being said I did try one of the local vegan restaurants that I was avoiding because of the location. While it was delicious, both dishes we ordered was covered in oil, so it’s not a healthy place to go. They had a tofu version of three cup chicken which was pretty mouth-watering and I will probably go again sometime.
The main reason why I don’t want to go there too often is because my diet has been incredibly successful. In the roughly 3 months since I started I have lost about 50 pounds! If I can keep this up by the end of the year I will be down by an entire person. But given that I am going to be on vacation at the end of the month I probably will have a stumbling block. 😹
Congratulations on the fantastic weight loss progress.
Tofu is severely underrated outside of Asia and virtually never gets the culinary attention it deserves. I saw that you posted a great essay on tofu; I need to get around to reading and commenting on it.
Sounds like you're becoming a pro! Any favorites you would be up for sharing?
Congrats!!! It sounds like your food choices are having some really impressive results! I wouldn't worry about vacation, we all deserve to indulge a little ;)
I don't know if I have something that I would particularly recommend. If you aren't too familiar with tofu or if you think you hate it, go to a restaurant and try some fried tofu; they'll serve it with a sweet soy-based sauce and it's pretty nice. And that's just the most basic version; there's also many recipe variations where you take that fried tofu and add it to a stir-fry with a sauce and some vegetables that make it a more complete meal.
I think one of the reasons why most western people don't like Tofu is because they don't know the techniques that draw out it's best qualities. If you just take it out of the package, heat it up, and put some sauce on it, it won't absorb the sauce properly. There are many things that you can do to improve it's ability to absorb flavors and to to give it a more 'meaty' texture. The technique I like to do is to cut it into whatever shape and size I need, put it on a hot frying pan, and press down fairly hard with the spatula. Pressing expresses the water from the tofu and having a hot pan to evaporate the water seems to make it faster than if you were to do that before frying it. When the bottom gets brown, flip it over and do the other side the exact same way (it should be a lot faster this time because you've already got most of the water out). After it's done browning on the second side it's ready to take whatever sauce you want to flavor it with.
Later yesterday I found out that I misread my earlier weight, so I'm actually closer to 40 pounds lost. But I'm still pretty happy with that number!
Edit: I didn't make this particular dish (it's not weight-loss friendly) but it should be really good and pretty easy to make: 三杯豆腐
We eat tofu about once a week. I find that the best results involve pressing the tofu for a few hours (stick it between two plates and put something heavy on top) and then marinate it overnight. If I’m frying it, I like to toss it with a bit of corn starch first for a bit of crispy-ness.
The San Bei Tofu looks delicious! Thanks for the recommendation!
My partner and I really ramped up our tofu consumption during Covid. I'd say we most often have it in stir-frys and curries. I still struggle to get it to taste as good at home as I have had at restaurants. I really appreciate your tips, I tend not to squeeze out the extra moisture once it's in the pan so I'll definitely give that a go. I really like the higher protein nature of tofu, but often find that for many meat replacements cauliflower or mushrooms does a better job. I'll keep experimenting though and try out some of the techniques you shared!
That's still a really big change, you should be stoked!
My latest culinary obsession is pasta al pomodoro. It's incredibly simple and takes less than 10 minutes from prep to plate. It's quite light and refreshing yet satisfying.
Its minimalism really places the tomato at the center. You need small flavorful ripe tomatoes like cherry tomatoes. (I'm lucky to live next to Berkeley Bowl, which has the greatest produce in the US, where I can get great tomatoes.)
Here's a gift link to the NYT Cooking recipe.
But my (superior and iterated) recipe is:
for one 400~500cal serving:
All you need are:
Start boiling spaghetti (or pasta of choice) in well-salted water. I use 84 grams, which is 300 calories worth of pasta.
Heat ~1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan. Not too hot. Add in 1 garlic clove. And add in a pinch of salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Let the oil infuse for a minute or two, and don't let the garlic burn. I like to toss in some basil after 1 min of infusion and right before adding tomatoes to lightly fry it.
You can choose to add the garlic clove whole, sliced, minced, or crushed (in order of garlickiness). When you crush garlic, alliinase and alliin in the garlic cells mix and react to create allicin, which gives the taste and smell of fresh garlic.
I find it best to have fewer than 10 red pepper flakes. We want subtle warmth but no detectable spiciness.
When the pasta is 1–2 minutes before al dente, transfer it to the sauce directly. Draining is unnecessary. If anything, the pasta water that comes along with it will help thicken the sauce. Cook for remaining time to desired doneness.
Once done, turn off heat, add desired chopped parsley and mix, letting the parsley slightly cook from the remaining heat for a few seconds, then serve with grated parmesan cheese on top (also optional).