Crispy Baked Tofu Bites, by Diane

I found this recipe from @plantyou, one of my favorite instagram accounts for healthy meal ideas and ways to use food scraps. These were a really crispy good snack/lunch! I made a few swaps that I included in the recipe below rather than posting hers.

First, I decided to swap the cornstarch for sweet potato starch, which I had leftover from my Taiwanese Chicken Cutlets, because it's extra crunchy when used as a coating. I also added my favorite chili crisp by Laogonma for flavor and a little bit of heat (this stuff is gold!!). The wet ingredients soaked up pretty quickly leaving me with no batter to coat the tofu, possibly from the addition of the sweet potato starch or possibly because I left the wet ingredients for about 5 min before I coated the tofu. As a result, the "batter" was sort of crumbly, so I sprayed the tofu cubes with avocado oil and tossed it in the crumbs and hoped for the best (it did actually all stick to the tofu in the end though)! Next time I'll coat the tofu in the wet ingredients before I toss in the starch and see if that helps, which I noted below. Finally, I used my air fryer, although her recipe uses the oven, and they did also turn out really crispy! 

Ingredients:

1 block firm tofu, pressed for 20 min and sliced into cubes

2 tbsp EVOO

2 tsp cornstarch (I used sweet potato starch)

2 tsp seasoning (I used goya here)

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp chili crisp

Directions:

1. Add EVOO, seasoning, and soy sauce in a bowl and whisk to combine.

2. Toss in tofu cubes to coat well, then add in starch and toss again.

3. Bake in air fryer @ 400 for 15 minutes, tossing halfway through.

Mee Goreng, by Diane

 

This was the main course of an Indonesian lunch a friend and I made. My friend had lived in Indonesia as a child, and I had taken cooking classes when I visited, so we created a menu of some of our favorite meals. This came out tasting fairly authentic, and it was neat to learn how to make your own sambal sauce (I've only ever seen this in a can or at tables in a little jar). 

Ingredients: 

1 lb fresh yellow egg noodles, cooked according to package

1.5 cup sambal tumis (we used homemade but you can buy this)

2 tbsp canola oil

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined (we subbed chicken)

1 cup cubed fried tofu

3 small bok choy, rinsed and sliced

Kosher salt

1.5 cups bean sprouts

2 tomatoes, sliced into wedges

Sweet soy sauce to taste

2 limes, wedged

Dried shallots for garnish

Directions:

1. Add sambal to wok and heat 5 min over medium heat.

2. Add noodles, bok choy, and tofu, combine well.

3. In a separate pan over medium heat, combine oil and shrimp and cook 5 minutes until opaque. Add to noodle mixture. 

4. Add tomatoes, sprouts, and soy sauce to taste. Stir one minute and season w salt.

5. Serve with limes and shallots.