Tofu

 

   One of the things I have decided to do this Lenten season (the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter) is to observe the practice of not eating meat on Fridays. Even though the faith I practice doesn't observe Lent, I have found it spiritually useful to do so anyway.

   I started refraining from meat on Fridays during Lent in college because I had several friends who were of the Catholic faith. Since I ate meals with them in the cafeteria quite often, I chose not to eat meat out of respect for them. Once I got out of college and was on my own, I stopped the practice.  As a side note, my Mom told me that  when she was young, Catholics didn't eat meat at all during Lent. That's why there are cheese ands raisin ravioli, so that people could get iron from the raisins. (I don't like cheese and raisin ravioli.) 

   One of the things that I have been exploring as part of my meat free meals is tofu. I'm one of those strange souls that likes to order the tofu dishes at Asian restaurants. One of my rules for eating out is to avoid ordering things that I can make for myself. When we eat at Chipotle, a fast food restaurant, I like to have sofritas which is the non meat protein option.  I like it because it is spicy and I prefer the texture to chicken which is what I used to order.

   There are two tofu based recipes that I found that I like. The first is a tofu curry salad. It has the consistency of egg salad and is really good with crackers. I have always liked the taste of curry especially the spicier recipes. The curry salad satisfies my taste for curry and give me a meat free option that I can use for meals at work.

   The second recipe is tofu taco filling. I didn't even know that tofu could be used in this way until my sister/friend Dana mentioned it (by the way Dana if you are reading this I still want your recipe) I found a recipe online that was very simple. Crumble the tofu and coat it with taco seasoning and a little olive oil. Fry the mixture until it you see dry brown edges then mix in some salsa. I like this recipe, but when I make it again, I will press some of the water out of the tofu because I think it was a little soft. It worked well for burritos and I even made a nice plate of nachos using a small amount that I had left over. 

   I'm looking forward to trying more tofu recipes to expand my range of meat free meals. Who knows, maybe I'll find a recipe that tastes so good that C will try it.