Hello, my name is Elizabeth, and I’m a curry addict.

I had been sober 30+ days, until fate intervened. When David and I got our income tax rebate from the IRS, the very first thing we did was go to an Indian restaurant called Palace of Asia for curry. (In the spirit of my Lent sacrifice, I had panir masala instead of my usual choice, which was just as nice. ) Before then, however, I’d managed to quit curry cold turkey — no at home curry messes, no Red Thai Curry microwave entrees from Lean Cuisine, no “curry chicken” from the Chinese place (accurately named “No. 1 Chinese Restaurant”) down the street. Oh no, I was not going to continue to live in the grip of this addiction.

Oh hell, of course I was.

My addiction began as benign as any other crutch upon which we learn to rely. I was 25, a stranger in the strange land of England, and drunk off my face. My new friends at my temporary job had gone out drinking and invited me along — as the kind of heavy girl that never gets these invites back in the US, I eagerly accepted. On the way out of the bar, my new best friend Clare and I stumbled into a fried chicken place (not KFC) to try the chicken before getting on the bus out of the city, back to the suburbs.

Somewhere along the way, I mentioned that fried foods were, without a doubt, the perfect food to go with large amounts of alcohol. But she shook her head. In England, after a night of heavy drinking, you do not go to McDonald’s; you go out “for an Indian” — preferably curry, though kebabs often fill in at late or short notice.

Several hours later, I was dragging my sober and slightly confused boyfriend back down the main street to a curry place where Clare believed one of our co-workers moonlighted. Naturally, as it was a Friday night, he was there, tending a rather packed bar. At our table, I stared at the menu, completely unsure of what any of the words meant (even though there was a description, in English, of what each item was) and what I’d actually like. Clare offered to order for me, and chose what would soon become crack for me: Chicken Tikka Masala.

Between the curry, the rice pilaf, the popodoms, and the naan, I was hooked. I’m sure the copious amounts of wine helped.

Now, I am a curry addict, and no lack of meat will leave me without my dearest, post beloved meal. Instead, I turned to that tried and true cookbook of mine, Vegan with a Vengeance : Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock and looked for a meat-free alternative.

Thai curry is naturally different than it’s Indian counterpart in several ways — it’s sweeter, for a start, and while it uses similar herbs and spices, it relies much more on corriander and it’s leafy plant-form, cilantro, for flavor. It also isn’t as thick or creamy, and plating the dish instead of serving it in a big bowl was much easier, as it relies more on the contents of the curry itself (in this case, veg and fried tofu) than the sauce to carry the flavor.

Still, it filled a warm little spot in my soul, to tide me over until the next time I feel the urge rising.

Green Thai Curry

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance : Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock

GREEN THAI CURRY PASTE

• 2 small Thai green peppers (I used serrano chiles), seeded and chopped
• 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped.
• 1/2 c boiling water
• 2 tbsp crushed coriander seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 5 white peppercorns
• 1 tbsp fresh chopped lemon grass
• 1 tbsp fresh chopped ginger (I used a tube of ginger paste — which is pureed ginger. I keep this on hand at almost all times.)
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 c. lightly packed fresh cilantro
• 2 tsp lime zest
• 1 c. shallots, chopped

CURRY (THE “MEAT” OF THE RECIPE, IF YOU WILL)

• 5 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 block of tofu, pressed and cut into triangles (the book provides detailed instructions for this earlier on)
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
• 1 medium red onion, sliced into thin half moons
• 1 (15 oz) can coconut milk
• 1 + 1/2 tbsp real maple syrup
• Juice of 1 lime (about 3 tbsps)
• 1/2 lightly packed fresh basil (the book recommends thai, but regular works as well)

INSTRUCTIONS

(if you aren’t feeling too adventurous, I’ve heard anecdotal evidence suggesting you can skip steps 1-3 and use canned/store-bought green thai chile paste. But if I didn’t, why would you?)

1. Place the chili peppers in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Because I used dried spices, I just threw the coriander, cumin, and peppercorns into a food processor. If you use whole, you should toast them first. See the book for more details.
3. Add the remaining ingredients to the food processor along with the chiles in water and grind to a paste. Cover and set aside until ready to use.
4. Heat 2 tbsp of peanut oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the tofu and fry on each side until golden brown. (Takes about 10 minutes per batch of tofu for me.) Tranfser to a large plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
5. In the same skillet, saute the red pepper and onions, adding more oil as necessary, for about 3 minutes.
6. Preheat a heavy-bottomed, medium-size sauce pan (In the interest of using fewer dishes, I did the above steps in a 10″, deep-sided cast iron skillet, transferred the peppers and onions to the tofu plate, and continued using the same skillet.) over medium heat.
7. Add the chile paste and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
8. Add the coconut milk and turn up the heat a bit. Mix together until the past is incorporated; bring to a low boil.
9. Add the maple syrup and lime juice, taste for sweetness, then add more syrup if necessary.
10. Place the tofu, peppers, and onions in the sauce and cover; cook for 5 minutes.
11. Add the basil and turn off the heat. Let sit for 5 minutes or so before serving with fresh cilantro for garnish.

As an experiment of sorts, one of my 101 things to do in 1001 days (goals I set and began to work on this year instead of a resolution – with a due date of September 2011) was, in one year, to celebrate the major religious holidays of the world’s three main religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. First up was Lent, and the tradition of giving up something you really like for 40 days (46, technically –- the Catholics who’ve counted the days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday realize there are more than 40 days in lent and believe Sundays do not count. Others haven’t counted.) There was even a terrible movie that many people may or may not remember, 40 Days and 40 Nights, starring Josh Hartnet about a guy who gives up sex for that period of time.

What did I give up for Lent?

Meat.

Mostly as an excuse to plow through the recipes in Vegan with a Vengeance, but also because I thought that perhaps giving up meat would help with my weight loss. Because honestly, between you and me, I’m a kinda chubby girl, mostly due to eating a lot of crap — especially sweets. Writing this blog is half to keep up with recipes so I don’t lose them, but half is also to force me to give up the student’s diet of pizza, ramen, pizza, microwave meals that I’ve been following. If I have to blog my cooking, then I have to actually cook, and if I actually have to cook — and show a large audience what I’m cooking — I’m less likely to just throw a frozen bag meal in a pan for 30 minutes.

I mean, I COULD do that, but who’d want to read a blog about that. So I cook, but usually it’s still semi-homemade using recipes out of the Wegman’s quarterly magazine. Something had to give–and since food-based resolutions the hallmark of my family’s annual lent celebration, it made the most sense to try to give up something that’d force me to cook more complex and healthier dishes.

So, from now until 4/12/09 — it’s all vegetarian, all the time.

I’ve always been intimidated by tofu. Even after the success of the Brooklyn Pad Thai (which I remade recently just to verify its awesomeness) I’m still a bit leery of the spongey white stuff. I’ve wanted to do something with tofu that didn’t involve frying it — you know, that whole healthier thing — but was so scared of what would happen when I tried just broiling or grilling.  I mean, look at the photo on the cover of the book. Do those triangles of criss-crossed grill marks make you go “Oooh! NOM!” Because that’s tofu.

I was so wrong about not frying it first and will never make that mistake again. Even after two hours of pressing, that extra-spongy texture, like you’re eating cubes of mozzarella cheese? Yup, baked tofu has that; fried tofu does not. It was like eating the cheese cubes in palak panir or panir masala — and without appropriate curry, that’s not so good. So, going forward, it’s always thin slices fried to a crispy finish.

But was the sauce good? Oh YES! And the coconut rice? Delish! And it was just as good when microwaved for lunch the next day.

BBQ Pomegranate Tofu

FOR THE TOFU

• 1 lb tofu, drained, pressed, and sliced into eigths
• 2 tbsps peanut oil
• 1 tbsp tamari

FOR THE BBQ SAUCE

• 1 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 cup shallots, minced
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp. Chinese fice-spice powder
• 2 c. vegetable broth
• A few dashes of black pepper
• 1 6-oz can of tomato paste
• 2 tbsp all-natural peanut butter (creamy)
• 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
• 2 tbsp tamari
• 1/2 c. pure maple syrup
• 1 tsp hot sauce
• 1 tsp liquid smoke
• 1 c. pomegranate seeds

Preheat oven to 350. In a 9×13″ baking pan, turn the gofu in the peanut oil and tamari to coat on both sides. Bake for 15 minutes, then flip the slices and bake for 15 minutes more. Meanwhile, prepare for the sauce.

In a saucepan over medium heat, saute the shallots in the peanut oil for about 5 minutes, add the garlic and five-spice powder, and saute 1 minute more. Add the broth and bring to a simmer. Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the pomegranate seeds) and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

At this point, your tofu should be done baking. Smother the tofu with the BBQ sauce, return to the oven, and bake 15 minutes more. Remove from oven. Serve with Coconut Rice and garnish with the pomegranate seeds

.

It’s strange the way I decided to make this recipe. On Friday, I was working out my menus for the rest of the week, and at some point my attention deficit got the better of me, and I ended up on the webside for The Guardian, a UK publication of mixed reviews — some love it, some loathe it. My feelings about the authors, editors, and readers aside, my attention was immediately captured by one piece in particular, essentially calling for the knighthood of Jamie Oliver.

Honestly, I’d never heard of Mr. Oliver until I lived in England in 2005. During that year, repeats of Jamie’s School Dinners (in which he visisted several public schools and decried the “food” being served while trying to dish up some nutritious food under budget and palletable to student tastes) were very popular, but my husband was one of those Britons who do not particularly care for Mr. Oliver. So, we never watched it. Then, during an ad break — probably while watching CSI, House, or another American inport on 4 or 5 — I saw an ad for Sainsbury’s in which Jamie Oliver — in the time it takes for one commercial to air — showed the viewers how to prepare roasted new potatoes with rosemary and garlic, and suddenly my interest was piqued. I gathered the ingredients at ASDA, and the next night made the potatoes for my future in-laws. There was some smoke where the olive oil slightly over-heated, and some of the garlic stuck to the pan, but the potatoes were still delicious, and I’d begun to soften my husband to the “Naked Chef” as Mr. Oliver’s show was called.

I took that potato recipe to heart, as my own, and made it any time I needed a starch and had new potatoes (or in a pinch, cubed red potatoes) at hand. As a present, years later, my husband purchased Jamie’s first cookbook — The Naked Chef — after I went on about Jamie’s School Dinners when it finally aired in the US and continued to make the new potatoes recipe whenever I could. I was so excited to receive it — my first real cookbook from a real celebrity chef — that I leafed through it eagerly upon unwrapping it, only to put it on a shelf and forget its existence until we moved.

You’ll notice from the photos that I, in fact, used a George Foreman Grill for dry-grilling the chicken instead of a cast-iron or hard adonized grill pan, and there’s a very good reason for this. I don’t own one. The closest I have come to owning one is when I was trying to figure out how to spend a $20 gift card from my boss in Marshalls/Home Goods recently, and I stumbled across a $40 calphanon griddle/panini pan with heavy lid/press. But that’d be an extra $20 plus tax out of my pocket, and honestly, I really needed that bathroom scale I purchased for exactly $20, which meant I only had to pay sales tax.

Honest.

And, there for example, is why I’ve only recently cracked open the Jamie Oliver cook book — I just don’t have the equiptment or access to the foods he wants. Until recently, when we moved into an area with a Wegmans, we didn’t have the money or the super market really needed to buy some of these items, and now that we have access, we have the problem of equiptment. (And my finicky eating which means that I only eat chicken and fish — which cuts out about 60% of the recipes in the book.)

But George Foreman to the rescue.

A few thoughts about his recipe. One, it cooks very quickly — if you have enough hands, or your husband is handy in the kitchen — you can put this whole thing together in ten minutes hands-on time; slightly more to prep, and if you use pre-minced garlic like we do, it’s that much faster. I started the broth and the water for the noodles at the same time. By the time the chicken was finished grilling, the noodles and veggies went on at the same time. One minute before the veggies finished, I cut the chicken, and then it was all about assembly.

Second, this recipe does not make a lot of broth; it says “dry-grilled” in the title, but it is meant to be a soup, and yet it wasn’t particularly soupy, since most of the broth went toward steaming the veggies. If I’d known it’d drain so much, I’d have cooked the broth separately in a deep pot and used the shallow, wide steamer pot to boil the ramen water — then boil the ramen in the pot and steam the veggies above.

Did we enjoy the first meal out of Mr. Oliver’s cook book? Oh yes. Sure, it was no Brooklyn Pad Thai, but it was warm and comforting and just spicy enough to take the chill off a bone-chilling, 10 degree, snowy day. Should Mr. Oliver be knighted, as the Guardian suggested? Um, that’s another question that this recipe didn’t exactly clarify for me. Maybe I’ll have a bit more of an epiphany when I’m eating the leftovers tomorrow for lunch.

Dry Grilled Chicken with Ginger, Chinese Greens, and Noodles in an Herb Broth

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts
• salt & pepper
• 4 cups chicken stock (Jamie says make your own — I used the stuff out of a box)
• 1 heaped teaspoon finely sliced fresh ginger (I grated mine.)
  
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 11-14oz Chinese greens (I used napa cabbage left over from another dish and fresh broccoli)
• 1 lb Asian rice noodles (I used ramen)
• 1 or 2 medium/large fresh red chillies, seeded and finely sliced (I used chili sauce instead)
  
• 1 handful of cilantro leaves, torn
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1 lemon or lime

instructions

1. Bone and skin the chicken breasts, trimming off any excess fat (I used boneless, skinless, thin-sliced breasts to avoid this step.)
2. Get a ridged griddle pan (or your Foreman grill) very hot, add the chicken breasts, and cook both sides until done. (I find if you turn the breasts 90 degrees when you flip them, you get an awesome criss-cross pattern that rocks, and ensures a more even color overall if you’re using a Foreman grill). Remove to a board and allow to rest for 3 minutes, then slice at an angle, around 1/2 inch apart.
3. Meanwhile, bring the chicken stock, ginger, and garlic to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. I like to steam my Chinese greens above the stock until tender (which is how I did it — about 3-4 minutes time), or in the broth if you prefer.
4. While the stock is simmering, cook the noodles in boiling, salted water, drain, and divide between 4 deep broth bowls. Divide the greens among the noodles, then place cooked chicken slices on top, and sprinkle with chili, cilantro, and soy sauce.
5. Finally, check the seasoning of the broth and pour it over each bowl (you could serve it at the table, as mentioned in the introduction). Finish with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

It was a cool March evening in 2006, and a young bride-to-be stood inside of an airport terminal, crying as she let go of the hand she’d held for so long. For 14 months straight, her future groom had never left her side, never not been in her bed at the end of the day to kiss her good night. Yet, because of archaic rules about immigration and borders and foreigners trying to steal her jobs and home, her fiance was on his way back to England, to interview for a visa to return to her. She was frightened, her heart pounding in her chest. Their wedding was planned for June 16th — three months away. Would he return to her then? Could she survive the agonizingly long days and cold, endlessly dark nights?

Completely beside herself on the car ride home from the airport, she did the only thing she could think of to ease the pain in her heart, save drink, which would have caused a whole slew of different problems in itself. She threw herself into wedding planning. Her fiance and she were planning to elope to Las Vegas, to have a quiet but fun and quirky wedding followed by an elegant dinner, and she needed to scour every review of every restaurant within walking distance of their hotel to find the perfect place to begin their married life together.

She — by which I mean “I”, naturally — settled on Mix, the Alain Ducasse restaurant on the 64th floor of THEHotel at Mandalay Bay.

They were not disappointed.

Every year, David and I return to Mix; every year, we enjoy our anniversary dinner with the same joy and wonder as we did on that first summer evening two and a half years ago. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with all things Alain Ducasse, reading reviews of his other restaurants around the world, determined to try them all, even though we are of limited means in this household. Sadly, our finances mean we don’t travel as much as we used to — and when we do, its usually to see David’s parents in England — so we’re usually no where near a Ducasse restaurant, and when we are in New York, it’s usually a very tight budget and a very limited engagement.

So naturally, my interests were immediately piqued when the New York Times featured a new book about my favorite celebrity chef’s meals and I had to try out the recipe for myself. It’s simple enough — coat fish, fry. Blend milk and ingredients, serve over fish. Yet the result is absolutely spectacular, and the left over sauce (which actually comes from another book, but shhhh, I won’t tell if you don’t) was excellent with some white bean chili the next night — the perfect punch to go with an otherwise blah recipe.

Almond-Crusted Fillet of Sole

Adapted from Ducasse Made Simple by Sophie: 100 Recipes from the Master Chef Simplified for the Home Cook

Ingredients:

1. Cut fish lengthwise into 2-inch-wide strips, then into pieces about 6 inches long. Spread almonds on a plate. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Heat oven to 225 degrees.

2. Whisk egg yolks well and season with salt and pepper. One at a time, dip fish into egg yolks, then roll in almonds until well coated. Transfer to paper-lined pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

3. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a large skillet. Working in batches, and adding butter to pan between batches, cook fish until golden brown on both sides. Transfer to ovenproof platter and place in oven.

4. Just before serving, scrape out pan to remove burned bits. Add 2 tablespoons butter to pan, melt until foamy, and drizzle over fish. Garnish with lemon and parsley. Serve with potatoes and sauce, if using.

*

Ají de Leche

Adapted from Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages

Combine chilies, scallions, garlic, cilantro and 1/2 cup milk in a blender. Purée to a paste, then add remaining milk and 1 teaspoon salt. Purée again and taste for salt. Pour through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing on solids to extract flavor. (I skipped this part; it was pureed so fine, I doubt I’d have extracted anything without the aid of a cheesecloth or 3.) Serve.

I actually heated the sauce briefly on the stove just to warm it through, because I’m an incredibly picky eater and hate cold food. It works just as well that way.

Okay, okay, I can hear you now: I thought you were going to update this daily, and it’s been a week since your last update, you bitch! I know, I know — if I were you, I wouldn’t read this blog any more either, since I’m a rather selfish woman who won’t drag herself out of bed when afflicted with an upper respiratory infection unless a massive mountain of email requests sends her flying to the kitchen.

Okay, that’s not exactly true — if no one reads this blog, then how can any email requests compel me to the kitchen? But I am battling a nasty upper respiratory infection, which was not pretty and not particular condusive to cooking, especially not nice meals for a blog. But, fearless readers, I have perservered, and still slightly under the weather now come to you with a recipe that I made last week.

Oh, you should feel special!

One of my goals (we’re not calling them resolutions, just like we don’t use the zed word when watching Shawn of the Dead) for this year was to lose weight and eat healthier — one of which should lead to the other, it would seem. So I went out and spent some hard-earned cash on a copy of Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook. To be honest, most of the recipes in the book aren’t particularly inspiring for someone like myself, who thrives on flavor, most of which is usually derrived from fat. Want me to be vegan, macrobiotic, or even raw? I’m all over any eating system you can throw at me — even Atkins if necessary — as long as I can have FLAVOR! Unfortunately, most healthy recipes are sorely short on this oh-so-crucial element of cooking.

That is, until this recipe.

This recipe is full of yummy apple goodness — if you’re like me, the kind of girl who loves fall because of the perfect, crisp weather and the abundance of your favorite foods which are only in season in the fall, then this is your recipe. There’s apple cidar, apples, and apple cidar vinegar — if it has the word “apple” in it, there’s an apple involved. In fact, to cook this recipe, I had to listen to Fiona Apple while reading the recipe off of a MacBook and say the magic words “Pomme manzana ringo”₁ over and over again in order to get the recipe to turn out right.

Oh, and there were some other ingredients too, but I don’t remember what they were.

Honestly, my biggest issue with Weight Watchers recipes is usually exactly what most people like about them — the simplicity. I don’t really want to take something from a package, mix it with something else from a package, and end up with something that’s kind of food-like. I want to take raw ingredients and get food. My last experience with a Weight Watchers recipe went something like this: canned fruit plus box of cake mix equals muffins.

Um, no. Flour, sugar, spices, binding ingredients, leavening ingredients, and flavor equals muffins. One can of something manufactured plus one box of something manufactured equals, “I should have just bought the damned prepackaged Weight Watchers muffins.”

Yet, I was pleasantly surprised by this recipe — enough recipe to make me feel like I was actually creating a meal from raw ingredients — which were surprisingly inexpensive because it was all basically in season (Then again, isn’t everything always in season somewhere? Isn’t it also five o’clock somewhere, so I should be drunk now?). And yet, the recipe was simple enough that I was done cooking within an hour, able to kick back, relax, and sip a snifter of apple schnapps while listening to the Beatles recordings from their Apple record days and recall trips of my youth to farms to pick pumpkins and drink apple cider every year around my birthday.

Not that this made me obsessed with apples or anything.

Chicken with Apples and Cider

Ingredients:

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 Granny Smith apple, cored and sliced

1 tbsp packed dark brown sugar

4 (4 oz) skinless, boneless chicken breasts (I used skinless, boneless chicken tenders)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 medium onion, thinly sliced into rings

1/2 c apple cider

1/4 c apple cider vinegar

2 cups hot cooked wide noodles (I used No Yolks egg noodles)

Instructions:

1. In a large, non-stick skillet (I used a seasoned cast iron skillet) over medium heat, heat 1 tbsp of the oil. Saute the apple until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with brown sugar; cook, stirring frequently, until tender, 3-5 minutes longer. Transfer to a plate.
2. On a sheet of wax paper, sprinkle the chicken with the cinnamon, salt, and pepper. In the skillet, heat the remaining 1 tbsp oil. Saute the chicken until browned, 4-5 minutes on each side. Transfer to another plate.
3. In the skillet, cook the onion, covered, until tender, 6-8 minutes; stir in the cider and vinegar. Reduce the heat and simmer 2 minutes. Return the chicken to the skillet; simmer, spooning the sauce over the chicken, until chicken is cooked through and liquid is reduced by half, 4-5 minutes.
4. Return the apples to the skillet; cook until heated through, about 2 minutes. Arrange the noodles on a platter; top with the chicken mixture, pouring any remaining juices over the chicken

Serves 4; Points Value: 8.

_{1: These are the word “apple” in French, Spanish, and Japanese, respectively}

If you could define my relationship with vegan foods and vegan cooking, it would come down to this–I hate tofu. On several occassions, I’ve tried eating the stuff–as steaks cooked in sweet and sour sauce, as cubes in an Amy’s teriyaki bowl, as filling in a vegan lasagna–and the result is always the same: nausea. I’ve known people who swear by the stuff, whose unwaivering love of this pale brick soy bean curd has lead them to name their cat “Tofu”, but tofu has never been right with me.

It’s the texture, the spongey icky evil of a smelly, slick white block of chewy nothing, that makes me so offended. Not that tofu should feel bad. I also refuse, unequivically, to eat okra because of the way raw okra turns to unswallowable slime in your mouth once you’ve chewed it. I also won’t eat certain fish because the texture is too tofu-like. So it needn’t feel particularly unloved.

That was, until Friday night.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, however, is a consummate cook, and her recipe for “Brooklyn Pad Thai” from Vegan with a Vengeance : Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes That Rock does, in fact, rock. It rocks hard core. It made both David and myself, in fact, like tofu. And when I say like, I mean when I went to put the leftovers in the fridge, there wasn’t a piece of fried tofu left to be seen.

The secret, for us, is pressing and frying. Yes, tofu takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it in, but flavor isn’t enough for texture junkies like us who buy high-thread-count bedsheets when we’re broke and are particular about the fibers our clothes are made from because tactile sensation is the most important thing in the world. Sure, I wouldn’t eat a slice of ham no matter how awesome the texture was, but I will turn up my nose at the best flavor cake — and I’m a sugar junkie — if it’s too dry and the crumb isn’t exactly so.

The last time I complained about tofu–after a failed attempt at a vegan lasagna that tasted of tomato sauce and nothing due to the ‘fu cheeses that did not, in fact, melt as promised–a friend said that the secret was pressing. You press the tofu, press again, and then when you think you’ve drained its little guts out, you press some more. Taking this to heart, David wrapped the tofu in a towel when he got home from work, and stacked three hardback cookbooks on top. An hour later, I got home from work, we sat around for a bit while I fought with Amazon.com over some Christmas gifts that still haven’t arrived, and then we went grocery shopping. We returned, unpacked the groceries, and only after I’d made the pad thai sauce did I un press and unwrap the tofu.

The plate was damp with moisture our absorbent kitchen towel could not soak up.

But extreme pressing alone was not the only trick. Thinly slicing the tofu and frying it until it had a brown crust on both sides created the best tofu I’ve ever eaten. Nom-able tofu is no longer the stuff of urban legand.

The recipe calls for rice noodles; however rice noodles are quite pricey at our local grocery store, and much like the tamarind paste I know I had once upon a time, our former housemates (my parents) seem to have helped themselves to quite a few of our ingredients we boxed up. One thing they didn’t touch, however, was the ten packets of TopRamen I brought home when I moved back in after college.

Ah ramen, is there anything you can’t do?

Other substitutions because of this situation followed. Our peanut oil disappeared; we used a half-bottle of seasame instead. No tamarind paste? Well, Isa says we can use lime instead! Bean sprouts? I hate those, so those were out. And if there’s no peanut oil, it’s silly to put peanuts in, right?

So, I guess really mine was more of a Jersey Girl Pad Thai.

Then came the lemongrass. Because we’re trying to eat on a budget, we’d planned for this meal (based on what we had in our food box according to our packing list — not according to what was in their after my mother “helped” repack) and bought a bundle of two piece of lemongrass. I didn’t think much of it–the recipe will have directions on what to do with this, right?

“1 tablespoon of lemongrass, minced”

What the hell? What do I mince? I mean, this is like grass, right? What’s the edible bit?

I stood there, staring at this long, stiff plant, contemplating its existence, when I finally thought to just look it up on Wikipedia:

Lemon grass is native to India. It is widely used as a herb in Asian cuisine. It has a citrus flavour and can be dried and powdered, or used fresh.

Lemon grass is commonly used in teas, soups, and curries. It is also suitable for poultry, fish, and seafood. It is often used as a tea in African and Latino-American countries (e.g., Togo, Mexico, DR Congo).

Well, that was helpful. Thanks so much.

In the end, I started from the bottom and began mincing like an idiot. A few minute later, we had a tablespoon of the stuff, with much more to spare. I wonder how long lemongrass keeps?

Brooklyn Pad Thai

Ingredients

FOR THE SAUCE

• 6 tbsp tamari
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tbsp Asian hot chile sauce or hot sauce (we used tobasco. It’s what we had)
• 1/4 c. rice wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp tamarind concentrate or lime juice (we used lime juice – fresh)

FOR THE PAD THAI

• 6 tbsp peanut oil (we used sesame – making it kind of pan-asian pad thai)
• 1 lb tofu, drained and pressed and cut into small triangles
• 1 medium size red onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp finely minced lemongrass
• 2 cups bean sprouts (I hate these and did not use them)
• 8 scallions (green onion) sliced into 1 1/2″ lengths
• 2 small dried red chiles, crumbled
• 1/2 c. chopped roasted peanuts
• 1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro
• Lime wedges for serving

Instructions

1. Prepare rice noodles according to package directions.
2. Mix together the ingredients for the sauce.
3. Preheat a large nonstick skillet or wok over moderate-high heat. Pour 2 tablespoons of the peanut oil into the pan and heat, then quickly add the tofu. Stir-fy for 4-5 minutes, until the tofu is crisp on the outside. Remove from pan and set aside. (This step took me 5 minutes per side, though I was using a seasoned cast-iron skillet instead of non-stick and different oil.)
4. Pour two tablespoons more of the peanut oil into the pan. Add half of the red onion and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add half the garlic and half the lemongrass, and stir-fry for 30 seconds more. Add half of the sauce and, when it starts to bubble (should bubble within a few seconds), add half the noodles. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, then add half the tofu, bean sprouts, scallions, chiles, and peanuts. Stir for 30 more seconds. Transfer to two serving plates and garnish with cilantro and lime wedges. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

If you looked at my family cookbook–not this project version, but the actual cookbook, as discussed in the Consumate Chocolate Cookie Recipe, you’d mostly find bits and pieces of packaging taped to the pages. Cardboard ripped off of boxes, bits of plastic from bags of chips and noodles, and various assorted substances can be found crammed into metal boxes and a tattered, batter-splattered, copy of the first edition Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook, whose pages now stick together and tear apart in thin yellow strips.

This recipe was always known to me as Grandma Coy’s Tuna Cassarole. It made sense: it had tuna, it was a cassarole, it was the kind of food my paternal grandmother would have made. It was only years later, when David and I moved out of my parents house that I found out that my grandmother wasn’t the brilliant cook I thought she was. We moved to England in 2005, and I decided to share a traditional, Southern recipe with my future in-laws in England, but I had never learned how to make my favorite dish.

I emailed my father, but he could not remember his mother making it, so he asked my mother instead. That night, she called me on the phone and laughed in my face as she explained that it was not, in fact, an old Southern family recipe. Oh no, it was her grandmother’s recipe–that she got off the back of a San Giorgio box.

Well shit.

Strangely, the original recipe isn’t a tuna cassarole; it’s called “Seashells in the Sunset” — yet it features no shells to speak of. The original calls for macaroni noodles, salmon, and pimientos, but you’ll find none of those in my mother’s version of my great-grandmother’s favorite stolen recipe.

This recipe is the one I made. Good luck finding the original — much googling resulted in mostly amature photography of seashells on a beach in the sunset. Oh well.

Seashells in the Sunset / Tuna Cassarole

• 8 oz. (1/2 pkg.) large pasta shells
• 1/4 c. butter
• 1/4 c. minced onion
• 1/3 c. flour
• 3 c. milk
• 1 tsp. salt
• Dash each nutmeg and pepper
• 1 c. shredded extra sharp white cheddar cheese
• 1 c. shredded monteray jack cheese (colby jack works too)
• 1-2 small cans (depending on taste. I use one) white tuna packed in water
• 1/4 c. fresh chopped parsley
• 3 tbsp. butter
• 1/2 c. Italian bread crumbs

1. Cook macaroni in boiling salted water as package directs until tender. Drain.
2. Meanwhile melt butter in a saucepan. Add onion, saute 5 minutes. Add flour; cook, stirring constantly for a moment or two. Add milk and continue to stir until mixture comes to a slow boil and thickens. Season sauce with nutmeg and pepper. Add cheese, pimiento, salmon and parsley.
3. Turn shells into a buttered 2 quart casserole and cover with the cheese sauce. Melt remaining butter and toss with crumbs, sprinkle liberally over casserole. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.