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!

I can't believe that I'm done with my first week of grad school. Luckily enough, I love it. The people in my program seem so nice (there are only 18 in my specific track, but there are still lots of other nice nutrition majors that we take classes with who are either going for their bachelor's degree or doing another masters program without an internship), and the classes haven't gotten the best of me yet. We'll see how it goes once they pick up speed. The good thing is that while some of my courses are all exam-based, others are all homework, presentations, and papers. I'm happy about this mix. 

Today, I want to share my favorite new breakfast recipe with you. As usual, I found it on Tina's website Carrots 'N' Cake. This two-ingredient pancake is very easy to make and only requires one banana and one to two eggs!

To make it, mash together a banana and an egg in a bowl. I usually use two eggs, because we buy very large bananas. You need enough cement to hold everything together once you cook it. I also cheat and add a half scoop of chocolate whey protein powder. The recipe only calls for two ingredients, but you can still add other tasty things to it. 

Once everything is mixed together, empty the batter into the pan. 

You need to be patient here and really let the bottom cook before you flip it. The first few times I made this, it all fell apart. Use low heat and give it time to work its magic. 

I've been eating my pancake with a scoop of natural peanut butter and Chobani black cherry Greek yogurt. It's a fantastic combo.

 I highly recommend this for breakfast if you want something that's low carb and tasty and easy to make!

Hi friends! One of the lifestyle changes that I made during my quest to slim down for the wedding included a diet high in protein, fruits, and veggies and low in flour and grains. I was very reluctant to give up oatmeal, but I found a recipe on Carrots 'n' Cake (still my favorite blog this many years later) for "oatmeal minus the oats". Tina (the blog's author) said it was good, so I decided to give it a go. 

Here are all of the ingredients that I needed:

I play around with recipes from time to time, but I already had all of the ingredients from Tina's recipe. I followed it exactly. I used:

• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1-2 tablespoons flaxseed
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (or as much as you want)
• 1 mashed banana
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
• some time to clean up your kitchen, because you will make a mess!

I used our newest measuring cups (I have some of my own in the basement that I can use as soon as I get my own apartment!) from The Pampered Chef. My mom's friend hosted a party recently, and we stocked up on some cool new kitchen gadgets. 

The rims are flared so that it won't drip when you pour liquids into the cup, and you can read the measurements from above instead of having to squat down, pour and watch from the side like we have to do with all other liquid measuring cups. What will they think of next?

I don't have ground flaxseed, so I ground it up along with the walnuts in the food processor until it resembled a paste-like consistency. It still had big pieces of flaxseed in there, but it didn't matter to me. 

I put all of the remaining ingredients (not including the raspberries that are in the ingredients picture...or the wine) in the blender for about 20 seconds (just until liquid-like) and then poured everything into a pot. 

I heated it on low and made sure to stir frequently. 

After a few minutes, the mixture began to thicken up and started to resemble oatmeal! It was ready to eat once it was the consistency that I wanted. 

I sprinkled more cinnamon on top, a few fresh raspberries, and a spoonful of natural peanut butter. 

It was surprisingly delicious! The only downside was cleaning up afterwards. It's a great breakfast to make on weekends when you have more time to do that. If you need some low-carb breakfast ideas, I highly recommend this one!