Sunday 18 August 2013

Miso Wasabi Pasta Salad. And dinosaurs.



dressing:
- oil
- soy sauce
- miso
- vinegar
- agave syrup
- miso

salad:
- 250g noodles 
- 200g tofu
- one zucchini
- fresh coriander
- smoked salt
- olive oil

Cook the noodles and prepare everything else while they're cooking. I had dinosaur-shaped pasta which is highly recommended. If you poor thing can't find anyone, use regular pasta of your preferred shape. I even think this salad would be wonderful with glass noodles but I haven't seen any cute shaped glass noodles ever, so where's the fun in that?

Whisk some oil (rather neutral in taste, like safflower oil) with the rest of the ingredients for the dressing. I had a tiny amount of wasabi, just enough that there is this hint of its fresh spiciness. Adjust to your taste.
The miso works really well with the wasabi and the syrup completes all this hearty and tangy flavours to a umami deliciousness.


Cut your tofu into very small cubes, the zucchini cubes can be a bit bigger. I had a yellow zucchini but the taste isn't very different to the green ones.
Heat a little olive oil and fry the tofu until it gets slightly brown and crispy. Add some smoked salt and then the zucchini. If everything is almost done, deglaze with soy sauce, then turn off the heat.

If the pasta is done, drain and toss with dressing. Then add tofu, zucchini and coriander, mix well.

I put the warm salad into jars as we were heading for a picnic and it was perfect as it could sit for 2 hours or so before we ate it.




Saturday 17 August 2013

Miau Club.

Members of the Miau Club obviously do like cats and they also like the colours soft pink and bright pink and mint and so on.



Wednesday 7 August 2013

Guard cat.

When I arrived at home after work today Woschech was waiting for me and kept me a parking space, next to this red Citroën 2CV. Woschech is a very obliging cat, isn't he?






Monday 5 August 2013

Too tired to fall asleep.

Had a few days off. I didn't manage to fulfil everything I planned, but I did manage to be as lazy as possible. Pretty good closure before going back to work: Driving to a show on a Sunday night with pretty nice people. Sitting outside between ugly concrete walls on wobbly garden chairs mocking about the opening band and watching the sky full of stars above us. Then going back into a dark, sweaty basement to listen to the second band which play total summer music. Coming home very late, not being able to sleep. Being totally tired but exhilarated on Monday, sad to be back at work again but with happy summer music in my head. Sometimes it's stunning how cheerful I can be.




Sunday 4 August 2013

Zucchini-tofu-stripes.

You can't really see it but in this picture of my tiny morning glory it's finally raining. 




 I then decided to cook something very good for my lunch at work tomorrow. 

- two zucchinis
- 200g tofu
- scallions
- small clove garlic
- smoked salt, paprika, pepper
- olive oil
- herbs like sage, thyme...

Cut everything into very thin stripes. Heat the oil and first fry the tofu until it's crisp and golden brown. Add garlic, zucchini and the rest and fry for a while, shaking the pan quite often. If it seem to be too dry, just add splashes of water. 
That's it. Very good.






Thursday 1 August 2013

If you were sane





Scrambled tofu.

Haven't posted a lot of scrambled tofu variations recently, not only because I was getting tired of posting about it, I really hadn't scrambled tofu that often. But today is a scrambled tofu day! A scrambled tofu with smoked salt day!

The smoked salt is not as obtrusive and outstanding as the smoked paprika I have. The smoky flavour is a bit more subtle and goes along pretty well with the tofu. And no, it does not taste like smoked tofu in the end, it's different.

- firm tofu
- smoked salt
- fennugreek
- 1 tsp mustard
- a few roasted cashews
- scallions
- oil

Heat oil in a pan and crumble the tofu into the pan. Fry for about 3 minutes, than add spices and nuts, stir well.
Turn the heat off and mix with chopped scallions.