tostones, baked tofu, salad

Here in Syracuse, plantains are ridiculously expensive. So when the local grocery store had them on sale for 50 cents, I grabbed one. I love plantains in any form, but I love the tostones I get when eating out at restaurants. I had never been able to recreate tostones at home, until I saw this recipe on Alton Brown's show, Good Eats. The only change we made was cutting the recipe in half and using a little bit of oil instead of deep-frying like he called for.

Here is a step-by-step guide for yummy tostones:

Cut into 1-inch pieces and fry 1.5 minutes on each side

Remove from oil and flatten

Soak in a mixture of water, salt, and garlic for ~1 minute

Fry again, for 1-2 minutes on each side, remove from heat, season with salt. YUM!

We had these as sides with some quinoa and Puerto Rican style black beans. They were really good! (Now, I've learned from Johanna's blog that these beans weren't too authentic, because we didn't use sofrito, but they were pretty good: onions, bell pepper, hot sauce, and a bunch of spices. Johanna, I promise that one day I will find culantro and make sofrito!)

I was really intrigued by Crystal's baked tofu recipe, so I decided to make some one day. All I had was Mori-nu silken tofu (the kind in an asceptic box), but Crystal had mentioned that she had made hers with silken tofu, so I went ahead and used it. After I kept squishing the tofu, I realized that SOFT silken tofu was probably a very bad idea for this recipe- lol! But guess what? It came out deliciously anyway. For my marinade, I used: tamari, rice vinegar, chili oil, sriracha, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, and a tiny bit of maple syrup.

The tofu looks mangled, but tasted excellent and had a really good texture. We ate it with wild rice and some broccoli and green beans that we stir-fried with the leftover tofu marinade. I will be making this recipe again.

Finally, here is another one of our famous everything-but-the-kitchen-sink salads:

A mixture of garbanzo beans, fava beans, grated carrots, radishes, bell pepper, onion, currants, shredded carrot, fresh parsley, dried mint, sunflower seeds, flax oil, and red wine vinegar. Usually, I make the crazy salads, but on this night, Daiku surprised me with this, and it really hit the spot! (If I'd made it, it would have probably also had a chopped-up apple in there...)

Sorry for bombarding you guys with food posts, but as you can see, I've had a lot to catch up on... and I'm not done!

tostones, baked tofu, salad