Last week's thread was pretty hoppin' so I guess it's time to start up a new one.

Tonight the DBF and I are taking the plunge and try tofu for the first time. We've both eaten it one or twice before, but we've never cooked it. We're a bit nervous about the texture and taste, but we bought cubes of the super firm kind and squeezed out as much of the water as we could so we're hoping the texture will be fine. Now it's marinating in a storebought relatively-low-carb marinade that we diluted with a bit of lemon juice and water to minimize the bad carbs. We plan to cook it up in a skillet with a wee bit of olive oil and serve it over salad (romaine, cucumber, and tomato).

Wish us luck, and share your dinner ideas for the week!

Turkey chili with black beans, steamed broccoli & cauliflower.

I made chicken soup with tortellini. I thought it might be okay on DH's stomach after the food poisoning.

Betsi- if you don't like the texture that way you may want to try freezing it before you cook it. You can take the whole block of extra firm tofu still in sealed package and freeze it. then when ready thaw, and squeeze out extra moisture- its easier to get rid of the liquid this way- sort of like a sponge... I don't care for mine this way but lots of people prefer it that way. I actually can eat tofu plain just out of the package~ but I am weird.

Betsi, your dinner sounds delish! Let us know how you liked it.
I like to cut my block of tofu into serving size portions after squeezing the liquid out, and freeze them that way. I do prefer my tofu frozen before using it, but like it fresh, too. The frozen seems to absorb the marinate or other flavors more.

I made a Vindaloo veggie stir-fry for supper, but, oh boy was it ever HOT! I had to tone it down with lots of yogurt, and even then it was barely tolerable. I dumped the leftovers into a colander and rinsed off as much of the sauce as I could, because I made enough for several more meals.

Thanks for the tofu tips, ladies! It came out great but we may try the freezing idea another time. The marinade was similar to Italian dressing and I thought it complemented the slightly nutty flavor of the tofu well, but Sweetie thought other flavors like ginger might be better next time. We'll probably also skip getting the pre-cubed variety as those tiny bits were tricky to turn so the browning was a bit uneven.

I couldn't resist playing with that cauliflower pizza recipe. I did tweak it to lower the fat and am close to something that works quite well. I'll definitely try it again soon and tweak a little more. Of course reduced fat cheese never looks like that full fat melted cheese looks but it still tasted good!

I experimented with cabbage rolls this weekend so I had one for dinner. Instead of using bread crumbs/oatmeal/crackers, I used cooked navy beans. Also made them with lean ground turkey. They were really soft, but once rolled up into the cabbage and stuck with a toothpick, they cooked just fine like that. Separated them out into individual containers as soon as they were done. Lower carb and fat that traditional cabbage rolls. A bit of extra fiber, too.

So I had:

Cabbage roll with extra cabbage/tomato juice (256 calories, 6 grams fat)
Salad with spinach, romaine, and cucumbers with a tablespoon of Annie's Naturals Lemon and Chive dressing.
Water

Very yummy! But a bit low on calories so I'll have to have a bit more after I get home from work tonight.

I'm making this black bean recipe from Real Simple magazine....since my friend gave me some avocados am making an avocado salad to go with it. Talk about dinner for $1.35! Really good recipe though, especially with radishes and cilantro which I have in my garden right now.

http://www.realsimple.com/food-recip...561/index.html

I tried a new recipe today: baked yogurt chicken.
I took four chicken breasts, mixed 1 cup yougurt with a 1/4 teaspoon very hot jamican jerk (bought at the supermarket) marinated this for about 2hrs and just before going into the oven at 350 for one hour, sprinkled some wholewheat panko bread crumbs with a splash of olive oil on top. Turned the broiler on the last five minutes.
It was delicious and the meat was so tender.
Side dish - braised fennel, onion and red pepper and a salad.
Sophie

I made chicken fajitas (tortillas for DBF, none for me), black beans, and homemade guacamole... Trader Joe's had a "guacamole kit," which came with 2 avocados, 2 tomatoes, onion, garlic, lime and jalapeno... for $2.99! It made a TON of guac, and I consider it a steal.

Also, the thinly-sliced chicken in the fajita let me stretch one chicken breast between the two of us. Yay!

BETSI- just wanted to share one more tip with you for the tofu- here lately I have been buying the bricks and slicing them thin lengthwise and pan-frying them until brown and crisp on both sides, then I take and cut them into strips and brown a bit more! another tip for getting more "crisp" tofu is after those have been browning a bit sprinkle a little parmesan on them and the parm will get crisp! this is sooooo yummy with some tomato or pomodoro sauce!!!! tofu parmesan! yum!!! even if you are adding to asian dishes the parm gives that coated fried taste...


tonight I had a large salad and veggie "tender rounds" with sauce and provolone so good!

I have a package of beautiful lean pork chops in the fridge. I'll figure what to do with them when I get home. I need to visit the crock pot page. Dinner cooking while I'm at work sounds good to me!

veggie chicken & broccoli over some kind of grain

Tonight was split pea soup and a veggie burger minus the bun.