tofu for you

Got my cooking on Friday after a Whole Foods adventure on Thursday. I made it out in under 50 dollars- and that included impulse buys of Honest Tea on sale and Larabars. BTW... I may be late to the game here but Larabars are DELICIOUS. They are made with anywhere from 3-9 ingredients- and the ingredient list includes simply salt, chocolate, fruit, and nuts. These energy bars are natural in the true sense, not in the "let me label my product natural and watch suckers believe it." I had the Blueberry Muffin and PB & J flavors. They are tasty and satisfying without being heavy. I'm even considering using them as refuel during the tri.

Speaking of the tri- Norah and I had an awesome bike ride Friday in Sandy Hook (where the tri will be) and finished about 14 miles. It was a beautiful day, not too hot but nice and sunny. The breeze was great when we were stopped but killer when we rode into the winds. I'm still not loving biking, but I did get to ride Norah's really nice Cannondale road bike. It puts my hybrid from Target to shame, and was significantly more fun to ride. Unfortunately a fancy bike like that just isn't in the budget right now. I've been really good about keeping to my newly made training schedule, and it was perfect that my Friday workout was already slated to be a bike day.

I have to head to work, so I can only comment on one of the recipes I made for the week. I decided to make a few recipes I found online, and this one was a winner. The recipe is for Tofu Steaks with Red Pepper-Walnut Sauce.  I followed the recipe exactly, so I won't post it in the interest of time (just click the link). The marinade was simple and tasty..

... then I breaded the tofu "steaks" in panko (whole wheat), flour (whole wheat) and egg. Add salt and pepper to the panko! After breading, I pan fried the steaks in just a tiny bit of EVOO. I didn't make the sauce, but instead used TJ's Eggplant + Red Pepper spread in the interest of time. Delicious (but why these are called steaks beats me- not one similarity). 

I grilled some eggplant, green pepper, zucchini, and yellow squash to go with the tofu...

... and purple pesto. A friend at work had lots of extra purple basil and offered it to me, which was awesome. I made a pesto out of the purple basil, walnuts, sundried tomatoes, garlic, EVOO, and asiago cheese (all things I had lying around). It tastes good but my proportions were off. Too cheesy, not enough herb. A work in progress. 

With all of that, I arrived at a delicious, light dinner for the week: tofu "steaks" w/ eggplant and roasted red pepper spread with grilled veggie stacks w/ purple pesto. (FYI the tofu reheats without a problem in the toaster oven at 450 degrees). 

Off to work now- night 2/3- have a good one!