The adventures of a wannabe vegan

Day 16 of eating vegan (mostly, I’ve had a few lapses) and feeling excellent.

My blood sugars are beautiful, I have more energy, and I’m sleeping lots better.

Vegan cooking is new to me, though, and it’s been a challenge.

Let’s talk about tofu for a moment.

I know, I’m a party animal.

Anywho, I yesterday I attempted to dry-fry some tofu.

I had an excellent recipe. This recipe calls for the cook to press out some of the tofu’s excess moisture, but leave some in so that when frying the tofu in a cast iron pan, the moisture left in the tofu helps it fry.

Well, my attempt was a disaster, because I tried to fry on too high a heat (I have an electric stove in this apartment and I haven’t quite mastered the controls yet).

I didn’t take a picture of the results. Trust me, you don’t want to see the results. Total yuck.

So I decided not to try dry-fry tofu until I’ve mastered an easier method of cooking tofu–baking!

This morning I headed down to QFC and bought another block of organic tofu.

Using my son’s method, I pressed the moisture out of tofu, using paper towels, and weighing the tofu down for 15-30 minutes. Then I poured a sauce of soy sauce and garlic powder on the tofu, pressed a bit more liquid out, cubed it, and baked the tofu at 350 degrees for twenty minutes.

And here is the result:

And it’s delicious!

I’ve also had good luck with some other vegan recipes: Mushroom Barley soup, lentil soup, and Dreena’s apple swirl loaf. I liked Dreena’s recipe so much I bought her book The Everyday Vegan. Dreena also has a blog!

I feel like I’m learning how to cook all over again.

So far I’m not missing meat and dairy (well, I do hanker for some Swiss cheese every so often), but I feel terrific (except for a bit o’ gas every so often, all of the veggies and fiber .

Tonight I’m going to have a tofu and veggie stir fry with brown rice.

Yummy!

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