I made the most outstanding tofu for two nights in a row, and I must share the recipe. It's very simple; you need to prepare a quick marinade, let the tofu soak in it, and then pop it in the oven (or you can cook it on the stove top). Easy, peasy. 

I got the marinade recipe from The Vegan Foodie. You can view it on the website here. 

To make the marinade, you need the following ingredients:

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 T soy sauce
1/2-1 T agave nectar
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic smashed (I used 2 T of minced garlic)
Any herbs that you want (or none at all)

You also need a block of firm tofu.

Add tofu, preheat oven to 350, then bake for 30 minutes. Flip the tofu after 15 minutes.

This recipe serves 2 people.

Here is the process in more detail: 

I made the marinade in a large bowl (just pour all of the ingredients in there and mix with a spoon) and then cubed my tofu. I know people like to press their tofu with a paper towel to absorb some of the water, but I never bother with that. I drain the water from the package and then start chopping away at the block. If you want to, though, you can plop the wet block on a cutting board, place a paper towel on top, and apply pressure until your paper towel is soaked through (at least that's how I do it). You can also put something like a heavy book on top of the block for a few minutes or buy a legitimate tofu press. For me, though, it's not worth the trouble.

I almost always cube my tofu. I can sometimes find tofu that is already cubed. If not, I cut the tofu in half by separating the top and the bottom of the block. I then leave the halves on top of each other and cut both width-wise and length-wise until I have relatively equal-sized cubes. It doesn't matter how big your cubes are; the most important thing is to try to get them to be the same size! 

I then throw the cubes into the marinade and let it sit covered for a few hours in the fridge (about 2 hours is enough for me, but you can do it for more or less time). Marinating in a bag is a probably a better idea, because there is always too much tofu in my bowl for all of it to be covered in the sauce. I usually take it out of the fridge a few times and stir the mixture so that all of the cubes get some flavor.

I preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and put the cubes in a baking pan that is large enough to spread them out in a single layer. I use a big spoon with holes (what do you call that?) so that the liquid can drain back into the bowl. Whatever you do, try to keep as much of the marinade as you can. Put the tofu in the oven and cook for 30 minutes (flipping them halfway through).

You can also sautee the tofu on the stove, but I find that the oven crisps it up

While the tofu is baking, I chop up a red onion (about 1/4 of a large onion; 1/2 of a small onion) and throw them into the leftover  marinade to pick up extra flavor. When the tofu is finished, you can pour the marinade with the onions on top of it, and it's delicious. I also cut up a few slices of tomato to add and spread some goat cheese crumbles over everything. You can really garnish with anything- it's up to you.

My inspiration for this balsamic tofu came from a balsamic tofu wrap that I ate from Whole Foods that was outstanding. I wanted to go home and make it myself. I still haven't eaten the tofu in a wrap, but I might try it next week. With some baby spinach, tomato, clinatro, and a whole grain wrap, I bet it would be a perfect lunch.

I hope you make this if you want a good vegetarian meal. It's so good!

I got home from California on Wednesday, and I hung around my parents' house for a couple of days before going back to the city. My mom started a vegan diet on January 1st, and she wanted me to make a vegan-friendly meal for Thursday night. She wanted spaghetti squash. Since I make it all the freaking time, though, I wanted to make another dish along with that yellow beast of a squash. I thought it would be fun to make quinoa burgers since I never had them or made them before, so I researched recipes and went grocery shopping. 

They were a piece of cake to make. The longest part was preparing the quinoa. Once that was done, I threw a bunch of ingredients in a food processor, mixed everything together, formed patties, and cooked the burgers on the stove. 

The mix that came out of the food processor was very tasty. That's one of the good thing about vegan food: you can sample the uncooked "burger batter". 

I cooked the spaghetti squash in the oven and just made up a simple sauce by adding sauteed onions and mushrooms and spices to a store-bought (vegan) pasta sauce. It was just fine. It was even better when I added parmesan cheese. If I ever became a vegan, I would have such a hard time giving that stuff up. 

The burgers were also fantastic. I got the recipe from sparkpeople.com. The link is here. 

Here is the recipe for very easy and tasty vegan quinoa burgers (serves six people):

2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup pine nuts or pumpkin seeds (I used pine nuts)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1/2 cup raw, diced onion
1 cup cooked black beans
1 tsp salt (I omitted this)
3 cups cooked quinoa (1 cup dry)
1/2 cup diced sweet red pepper
bread crumbs (you can use rice flour for a gluten-free alternative)
2 Tbs. olive oil

Cook the quinoa according to the instructions on the package. When finished, put all of the ingredients in a food processor or blender except for the quinoa and bread crumbs. Blend them until they have a mushy consistency (look at my after-blending photo) and then mix the "mush" with quinoa and bread crumbs in a bowl. The recipe says to roll the mixture in the bread crumbs before cooking, but I just mixed everything together. It turned out fine. 

Roll the mixture into balls, flatten them out so that they look like burgers, and then throw them on a hot pan on the stove top to cook. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side, or flip when they look golden-brown. My pan was too hot, so I slightly burned the burgers (see photo). I'm learning things, one day at a time. 

If you're going all vegan on these, do not omit the bread crumbs! Your burger will fall apart and will resemble quinoa hash more than anything. 

What a great recipe! Even if you're not a vegan, these are worth making. 

Have a great night, everybody!

Today was my first day back at school. While it's nice to be back and see friendly faces, I know that this is going to be some of the busiest 4 to 5-ish months of my life. I know that the week of Valentine's Day, for example, that I have at least four exams. It's to be expected when you're taking 21 hours, but I am already looking forward to the end of my first week of May.

I got back from California on Wednesday. It was a very relaxing week. I read 2.5 books, watched the first season of Downton Abbey, and spent some quality time with Al. We drove around Napa Valley on Saturday (I only half-jokingly told Alastair to keep his job in Napa while I stay in school so that I can move there after I graduate, because the scenery is so exquisitely beautiful), and then we ventured to San Francisco on Sunday. Our first stop (and the only place I really took pictures) was Alcatraz (I almost just wrote "Azkaban"- the Wizard prison from Harry Potter. Seriously.). Alcatraz was a maximum-security prison from the 1930's until the middle of the 60's. It's located on an island, and the only way to get there is by boat. As you can imagine, it can make for quite an eerie setting. I went there when I was 9, and I couldn't wait to see it again as an adult. 

For an especially scenic drive, we entered the city via the Golden Gate Bridge. 

We parked over by Fisherman's Wharf, grabbed an early lunch at Pier 39, and then we waited in line for the ferry to take us over to Alcatraz. The quick ferry ride was very visually-appealing, including views of the harbor, the city skyline, and some bridges and little islands that I can't name. I wondered if I would enjoy a commute like this every day. I don't mean that I would want to go to a prison every day, but just a ferry commute in general. It seems so much more relaxing than a train, a car, or a bus. 

Before long, we were free to explore the island. 

Just like the last time I went, we did the audio tour of the prison house. The tour was exactly the same, and it was great. It's very informative, and it doesn't supply you with superfluous information that results in boredom. The headphones and cassette player are also free. The only Alcatraz fare that we paid was for the ferry.

As to be expected, we saw a lot of tiny jail cells. 

The inmates had a somewhat large recreation area. They could complain about their jail cells until the cows come home, but they couldn't complain about their views from the recreation yard. I'm sure the outdoor time was the best time of the day for many of the inmates. 

Once we finished the tour, we got the next ferry back to the city. 

We got back in the car and drove around Golden Gate Park, which is located on the northwest side of the city. When we got through to the other side, we saw the ocean. We parked the car and walked north to a lookout point at the Cliff House, which is a famous restaurant with uninterrupted ocean views. We could not believe how pretty it was. San Francisco is a stunning city. 

We then went to my cousin's apartment and grabbed dinner with him and his fiance. They are getting married in June in Mexico, and I am already ready to go there!

The rest of my trip revolved around being lazy while Al was at work. Now that I'm back, I'm glad that I lounged around and took some time for myself. I needed some calm before the chaos. 

Even if I can't do long posts, I am going to try my best to post some short recipes. I won't have much time to cook, so my weekly meals will be easy and healthy. I'm not going to resort to microwave and take-out meals. Otherwise, I have no right to lecture busy people on healthy eating!

Happy 2013 from Napa, California! I haven't made a New Years resolution in a long time, but this year, I want to blog more. I used to do it every day, and now I do it more like one time per month. It will be hard once I start classes again for the new semester, because my schedule is CRAZY! Regardless, it shouldn't be too hard for me to update recipes, exercises, and fun happenings with friends and family. 

I was supposed to post this below in November when I had dinner with a small group of friends from school at Demera in Chicago, but I failed miserably. As I said before, being a student makes me a much less reliable blogger. Don't let my low-blogging frequency put a damper post, though, because this place was awesome!

I have heard stories about Ethiopian food, and it never sounded that great to me. I thought it consisted of eating paste with your hands. It seemed more or less fun (if you can handle meals sans silverware), but not delicious. Once I immersed myself into the world of food, culture, and nutrition though, I learned that people I know actually like Ethiopian cuisine. Perhaps I could like it too. 

With some research, I learned that Ethiopian food is not necessarily eating paste with your hands. It usually consists (most popularly) of a flavorful thick stew called wat and bread called injera that you use to mop up the wat. The injera is a thin, iron-rich bread with a spongy consistency that is made from fermented teff flour (source). Don't let the spongy consistency fool you; injera is very filling. 

The top picture shows assorted types of wat on top of one large piece of injera. I was in charge of ordering, so I made sure to get one large platter that included beef, lamb, chicken, seafood, and plenty of veggie wat options. This met all of our dietary requirements. For a group of five of us, this was plenty. We could not even finish everything.

The next picture shows the injera that they gave us on the side. They are large, rolled up pieces that somehow resemble building insulation to me (but they tasted much better than I think building insulation would taste).

To eat everything together, we ripped off pieces of the injera and used them to pick up pieces of wat on the shared platter. We also used our hands to rip apart the injera underneath the wat. After a while, the bread soaked up all of the flavor and it was delicious. Overall, our group had a lot of fun. We preferred this over ordering individual plates, because the food became the central part of our conversation. It was a great way to bring us together and discuss the food that we were eating. 

If you have any interest in trying Ethiopian food in Chicago, give Demera a try or look at other Ethiopian restaurants around the Edgewater area (near Broadway and Montrose). Along with African food, Edgewater is an outstanding hub for authentic international cuisine. 

I hope that everybody had a wonderful holiday. I'm escaping the crazy cold and wind in Chicago for Napa to spend time with Al before I have to get back to the grind of my 21-hour semester schedule. Happy Friday, everyone!