Cooked and raw food in bowls | Amazing tofu

The weather has been less than pleasant lately — sunless, chilly, rainy, blah. It seems to be June everywhere but here, or, maybe, this is what June is like here. I feel like I should be making lighter, summery foods, but keep needing something warmer and comforting. My solution seems to be cooked foods on top of raw ones, i.e., hot and cold salads. The first photo you see is of crispy tofu and steamed broccoli over raw salad greens and grape tomatoes. The salad is topped with one of my favorite dressings — umeboshi paste and tahini. (I used a simple unsweetened version, though sometimes I add other things like garlic, sweetener or nigella seeds.) I really loved eating the salad — especially the crisp and flavorful tofu.

This brings me to the topic of how to cook great-tasting, crispy tofu. I've been cooking tofu since before some readers of this blog were born — I've pressed, crumbled, puréed, fried, broiled, baked, whipped, marinated and frozen it into everything from ice cream, cheesecake, lasagna, burgers, omelets, cream cheese, pancakes, tofu turkey and tofu jerky. You name it, I've tofu-ed it. Still, when I saw a post at Herbivoracious on how to make tofu taste really delicious, I went to the blog to read it, because there is always something new to learn, or to be reminded of if you've forgotten. In Michael's tofu 101 post, he describes how to make fabulous tasting crisp and golden tofu. I followed his directions (except for soaking because I was too hungry and needed the tofu immediately). The only seasoning I used was a tiny sprinkle of kosher salt in the last few seconds of browning; I used my wok because I have a power burner on the stove that works really well. I crisped the tofu in thin slabs and cut it for the salad after it was cooked. And was it good? Oh, yes, it was amazingly good. Whether you are an experienced tofu cook or a beginner, you may learn something new — maybe a small detail you were missing — about how to make perfectly-golden, crispy tofu. (Not deep-fried!) Read more here.

The chickpeas in the bowl were toasted in a wok and combined with  kalamata olives and walnuts before being layed over a green salad and topped with avocado and tahini dressing. Oooo ahhhhh.

This is Ken's delectable chili served over — you guessed it — green salad. A few tortilla chips in the bowl would have made this great combo even better, if a little less healthy. The chili is very hearty and made with three kinds of beans and cauliflower. The original recipe contains seitan, but that's been eliminated to make it gluten-free. Still tasted great! (There might be brown rice under the chili — can't remember.)

Here are some examples of early morning hot-and-cold foods. The base of the first one is cooked oatmeal, with a topping of frozen blueberries. Yes, there really is oatmeal in there!

I call this, oatmeal a la Maud, since it was inspired by one of her combinations on Food Feud. The oatmeal is topped with fresh blueberries, frozen mango pieces, almond milk and hemp hearts. It was so chilly in the house that eating frozen mango just didn't seem right, so I warmed it slightly before adding it.
 

Finally, we have oatmeal, almond milk, dried cranberries, bananas and shredded coconut.

This has been part 1 of Food in Bowls.

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Newsflash

1. Tomorrow (6/9/12) is Mad City Vegan Fest in Madison Wis. If you are in or near the city, stop by for terrific samples, speakers and workshops. There's an impressive list of speakers, including Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, and Ginny Messina, the Vegan RD. I was able to attend last year and am sorry to miss this year's event.

2. The first ever Twin Cities Veg Fest will take place on July 14, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN. Contact: Unny Nambudiripad, 612-276-2242 (office), 612-532-4239 (cell)

Twin Cities Veg Fest will be a celebration of compassionate living and will seek to inspire respect for animals and encourage a plant-based diet. Twin Cities Veg Fest will be a fun event with tons of free delicious vegan food samples, diverse exhibitors, nationally recognized speakers and a children's area.

To make the event a success, they are asking for your help spreading the word. You can learn more about the festival and see the list of exhibitors, sponsors and speakers at tcvegfest.com. Like them on Facebook  and follow them on Twitter. Please take a moment to share this information via your email lists, website, Facebook and Twitter.

3. I received a sample box from Healthy Surprise filled with cool vegan, gluten-free, healthy snacks. I'm going to do a post about this soon, after I've had a chance to sample and photograph some of the snacks, but they look good! The company has offered readers of this blog a coupon to use for $5 off unlimited orders, so if you look at their Web page and want to order something before I get a chance to write a review, here's the code: COKEASYVEGAN. Notice it says COK, not Cook. And my name isn't Lacey. (And no, I'm not an affiliate.)