Sweet n Sour Sesame Tofu

Due to my current even-more-conscious-eating 2-week trial, I couldn't eat this, barely tasted the sauce just to make sure it didn't taste like poo...but apparently it was perfect and I nailed it. Wee!

I served this with rice and some spinach that I cooked by first sauteing some minced garlic over sesame oil, then cooking the spinach (about a bag) til almost all wilted, then adding about a tablespoon and a half of soy sauce and the same amount of granulated sugar, mixing that up over low heat til done, and then taking it off the heat and adding about a tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds.

These dishes went great together. I recommend you try the tofu out at least! Pretty good--I didn't fry every side of the small chunks of tofu perfectly (they were so small and kept breaking!) but used a spatula to turn them as best I could.

Sweet 'n Sour Sesame Tofu
Recipe from The Spice Train

3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon dark or light brown sugar
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/2 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon honey
about 1 pound firm tofu
1/2 cup flour
4 scallions, chopped
about 3 tablespoons vegetable oil for frying

Put the soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, sesame seeds, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, cornstarch and honey into a bowl and whisk well until fully combined. Set aside.

Cut the tofu into 1-inch cubes.

Roll the tofu cubes in the flour, making sure you are coating them on all sides.

Fry the tofu in vegetable oil until golden brown on all sides. Set aside.

Pour the sauce ingredients into a sauce pan and bring to a full boil. Keep boiling the sauce until it becomes transparent and thickens. Take off the heat and pour over the tofu.

Serve with rice and sprinkle chopped scallions on top.

Italian Sausage Stuffed Peppers

I made this for Adam last night and it looked soooo good, but I'm going on a little diet so couldn't participate myself. He completely devoured it...so assuming it's good. I adapted the recipe a ton (I used leftover long-grain rice, cut it in half to use just one pepper, and used fresh parsley and added enough salt/pepper/garlic powder to make it taste excellent) but below is the base recipe. I can't wait to try it myself! From the taste I got to make sure it was seasoned correctly, I really missed out!

Italian Sausage Stuffed Peppers
Recipe From Nine Months Baking

2 bell peppers (red, yellow or orange) halved and seeded lengthwise
½ pound spicy italian sausage (casings removed)
1 cup bulgur
1¼ cup almost boiling water
1½ cups spinach
1 sweet onion chopped
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp parsley
Olive oil for drizzling
Parmesan for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 and line a baking sheet with foil.

First in a large bowl (because you will use this bowl later on for mixing) add your bulgur and your almost boiling water. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes.

While bulgur is “cooking” take a pan over medium heat and add your italian sausage, breaking up into smaller pieces and cook until browned.

Once sausage is almost done cooking add your chopped onion. Let sauté until onions are translucent.

Add your garlic powder, salt, black pepper and parsley. Mix.

Add spinach and let cook for one minute and remove from heat.

By now your bulgur should be done. Taking your sausage mixture add to bulgur and mix well.

Taking your peppers, cut side facing up, add to lined baking sheet and place in oven for about 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and add stuffing to each pepper being sure to pack it in, drizzle lightly with olive oil and place in oven again for another 10 minutes.