Tastes Better Than Chicken

I had a tofu craving and this is what I made. It’s "Mock Chicken Salad" from "Simple Vegetarian Pleasures" by Jeanne Lemlin. It’s one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, not just vegetarian. Most of the ingredients are things you can find at a regular store, and the dishes taste like the kind of food you’d eat and not even realize that you’re eating vegetarian.

I ate some today wrapped in a flour tortilla. I found a new Mexican grocery store in town, they have everything, a tortilleria, panaderia, carniceria, and groceries. The tortillas were hot off the grill and still warm when I got them home. Absolutely delicious. I wouldn't say it "tastes like chicken" but the texture is very similar, in fact, I like the texture a lot better than those mock egg salad sandwiches made with tofu.

MOCK CHICKEN SALAD
For 4-5 sandwiches
1 pound extra firm tofu
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce
1 large scallion, very thinly sliced
1 medium celery rib, very thinly sliced
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Place the tofu in a cotton or linen kitchen towel and gather up the sides of the towel to create a pouch of tofu. Twist the ball of tofu until a lot of liquid is released. Drop the tofu ball onto a cutting board, then with a large knife, finely chop it so the pieces are the size of small peas.
2. Heat the oil in a large, non-stick skillet over high heat until it is very hot but not yet smoking. Add the tofu and shake the pan to prevent it from sticking, then, using a spatula, flip it around until it gets evenly golden brown. This should take at least 10 minutes. Keep the heat high. The pan might start to smoke but that’s okay, just keep flipping the tofu. When done, drop it into a medium-size bowl and drizzle the soy sauce all over it. Toss well. let cool 10 minutes, then refrigerate it until very cold, at least 1 hour.
3. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Keep covered and chilled until ready to use.
   

Individual Quiches

These are too cute! And tasty too!! Rachael made them this week on her talk show - individual quiches. They’re made from puff pastry, placed in a muffin tin. I added more veggies, sauteed some broccoli, mushrooms and green onion, in addition to the spinach. At first I thought I didn’t have enough egg mixture but as they baked, they really puffed up. Hubby didn’t seem too thrilled with them but my sis-in-law said that it’s a keeper. I liked them too.

I’m slowly but surely clearing out my freezer. That was the end of the puff pastry, frozen spinach and a few strips of bacon. The way food prices are going, I’m almost reluctant to use my stash but some of the things are getting old. I can’t believe how prices are escalating from week to week. When is it going to stop?!? The other day I wanted some cottage cheese and a large container was $3.79. I ended up waiting until I went to a different store and found some closer to $3, but it wasn’t my favorite brand.

My brother-in-law is retired military so goes to the PX occasionally. I asked him to pick up some rice for me, I ended up with 6 pounds, each 2 pound package was something like $1.66. On the news they were reporting that people are buying up rice at places like Costco, to the point where they are putting limits on the quantities people can buy. I like rice but don’t eat it everyday. Now I have what is a year’s supply (for us) stashed away, since I had also bought some long grain for 25 cents a pound. It seems like prices were creeping up but once they started talking about it in the news, the prices accelerated even faster. It’s quite discouraging.

May already

I just wanted to say I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning, when I get to have Peet's coffee to wake up to!!! My package arrived today. I'm so excited. I kept walking into the kitchen and smelling it. I didn't realize how homesick I was.

I'm kind of hesitant to bring this up because I'm afraid people will take it the wrong way, but this weekend when I was at Walmart, they had a Women's Health informational session going on, with a bunch of giveaways. One of the items was a book, and the elderly man standing there asked if I wanted it in "English or the Hispanic version." I thought it's pretty obvious I'm Asian-American, so I don't know why he said that. One friend thinks maybe I look educated so I might want the book in another language.

Other things complete strangers have said to me in the past, include "You speak English good!", "Where were you born?" and "How do you make fried rice?" Another time the hostess at a hotel breakfast asked my husband to ask me if I wanted a waffle. He politely told her she could ask me herself since I speak English.

Anyway, I can't wait to have some Peet's tomorrow morning. I think it has been over a year since my last cup. That's a long time to go without good coffee.

Stimulus Package

I'm getting my stimulus package in the form of coffee beans, and I couldn't be happier. The other day I got an email saying I'm a runner-up in the "Why I Love Peets" contest! I entered multiple times and I guess that showed my dedication. My beans are scheduled to roast today. I'm excited! I didn't put it on my 101 list but Peet's coffee is definitely one of my absolute favorite things. Unfortunately I don't drink it on a regular basis, mostly because it's pricier than what you can get at Costco or Sam's. For me, it's more along the lines of a "special occasion" coffee, even moreso now since there is no Peets in the area. Anyway, I won a sampler of 3 different blends of their coffee.

I need to catch up on blogging, it's hard to believe another month has gone by. I'm already falling behind on all my magazines. I think I only tried about 3 new recipes this month. I'm blaming it on paperwork and also spending more time listening to audiobooks ("No Country For Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy and now "Charlie Wilson's War" by George Crile).

Cow Dogs

Happy Earth Day!

We’ve had more animal commotion around here lately. Over the weekend, we noticed evidence of cows on the property, as well as tracks from a horse. While I was out running, I also saw an animal, but only the behind end, not the head, from a distance, so I couldn’t tell what it was. It was darker than the deer I’ve seen and had long legs, I’m thinking it might have been one of the renegade horses.

My brother-in-law called our neighbor to find out if he has any cows missing. He did. They went around yesterday trying to find the last two that haven’t come home. Today the dogs started barking and howling, then ran down the hill. Something barked at them in return. We have coyotes out here too but this was definitely a dog. My sister-in-law then remembered that the neighbor had said, if he couldn’t find the missing cows, he was going to have his friend come out here with his cow dogs, to round them up.

I’ve heard of sheep dogs before, but not cow dogs. Guess you learn something every day.

We still don't know what's up with the horses being out here. I don't think the neighbor had any missing.

Anyway, that’s what kind of adventure that’s been going on around here.

My First Oyster

I had my first raw oyster. People who love them, seem to REALLY love them. Sadly, for me, there was no Bourdain-esque epiphany. It was more of a "take it or leave it" sensation, it left me wondering why people swoon over them. I guess the good was that I wasn’t disgusted and hope to try it again someday. Mine was plain, no Tabasco or fancy sauce on it.

This was in Little Rock, at Cajun’s Wharf. It was a nice trip there, considering we were in lectures most of the time. Unfortunately we didn’t have any time for sightseeing, didn’t get to see any museums or even the duck parade at the Peabody.

One of our "goals" was to have Japanese food. Our first attempt was at Wasabi, for lunch. We sat down, were ready to order, and nobody came to our table, even after one of our group went up to the host and said we were ready. The waiter came by and said, "You already have menus." We said we were ready to order, he took our menus, left, and never returned. In the meantime, another group that was seated after us, was taken care of. At this point, we needed to eat in a timely manner, even if it did smell good in there, so we ended up leaving and getting pizza a short ways down. We did get Japanese food later at Hanaroo, for dinner. It’s always encouraging when you hear Japanese spoken at a Japanese restaurant. Everyone enjoyed the miso soup (it’s the little things I miss), and we all had sushi of some sort. The last day we had lunch at the River Market. I miss having an international variety like they have there.

I enjoyed being away for a few days. It was long enough to feel that I got away, and short enough where I didn’t worry about what was going on at home.

Dinner Tonight

This is what I had for dinner tonight, with leftover tuna cakes. The recipe is from Kraft Food & Family magazine (which is FREE, and is one of my favorite magazines), and has Stove Top stuffing mixed in with the tuna, along with mayonnaise and a few other ingredients. I liked the texture but even though I added less stuffing than the recipe called for, there was too much of a sage flavor for me. Overall I liked the cakes, and enjoyed them on top of my salad. I’ve been trying to incorporate more non-meat protein in our salads, such as with hardboiled eggs or lentils. Next on my want-to-try list is the Baked Falafel from Healthy Appetite that aired this past weekend.

When I retrieved the photos from my camera, I saw I’d forgotten that I made a Berry Slump earlier this month. Hubby has memories of blackberry dumplings from childhood, that his babysitter made, so between his Mom and me, we’ve been trying to find dumpling recipes. My mother-in-law's latest version is to cook down berries & sugar in a saucepan, and then cut up refrigerated crescent dough into the simmering berries. My version is from the King Arthur Flour Baking Book, for Blueberry Slump. It has a biscuit dough and also a sugar syrup that’s poured on top, to keep everything moist. I didn’t think the syrup moistened anything, and in fact, my biscuit dough was still a little raw in the middle (it really puffs up...rather, down, into the berries). Forgetting that, it was pretty good. I like the crisp top of the biscuits vs. the steamed texture of a dumpling.

Last night we had breakfast tacos, based on a recipe from a cookbook we got from Costco during the holidays last year (Favorite Recipes the Costco Way - it was also FREE!!!). I didn’t take a picture since I used more of the concept for the recipe, than the recipe itself. It’s self-explanatory though, breakfast tacos from the cookbook are flour tortillas stuffed with scrambled eggs and pork sausage. Instead I used chorizo and didn’t make the sour cream cilantro sauce. It’s a great cookbook, using products that can be purchased at Costco. Unfortunately there’s no Costco in our area, it’s Walmart and Sam’s Club Land. I just miss the variety, since those other stores carry many of the same items.

I guess I did make my five new recipes for the month. I’m still going to try doing that, but may not blog about everything unless it’s more than ordinary. While my favorite past-times are mostly food related, I don’t really want this blog to be all about what I eat, etc.

This weekend I’m going to Little Rock with my sister-in-law, to attend a meeting to rack up continuing education points (we are both educated in the medical field). I’m dreading the long days sitting in lectures, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of that state, and maybe going to different restaurants than what we have here. We seldom go out to dinner. Hubby hates eating out. I enjoy it occasionally since it gives me a break, plus I like to try new things.