Can some tofu crisps slow down the pace?

The last couple of weeks has seen life go into serious overdrive. A manic worklife coupled with coaching and running made a lot of other passions take a backseat. When the fingers are itching to start writing about food, but need to be dragged away to type a few hundred lines of code instead ... know that feeling? It is a sure sign that life desperately deserves a deep breath!


Before I even talk about anything else, a long overdue acknowledgement - I Clicked! Much to my astonishment! Thanks go to this one for helping me out with my pix. I always gawk at all the pictures in the Jugalbandi gallery and am eternally amazed by the boundless creativity that seems to come forth every month courtesy of this awesome event. And to think that I actually took a picture that people enjoyed looking at makes me kick up my heels and go skipping around town!


Thanks, Bee & Jai for organizing this event and making theme photography that much more accessible for everybody :)

And now, for some long overdue chow conversation. In spite of the hectic life of yester-couple-of-weeks, a lot of food was cooked and consumed. Guess that never changes, huh? :) And one of the tasty and fabulously simple snacks that we stumbled upon involves tofu. Sig probably just fell off her chair shocked that I'm talking about tofu (again!) :)

I love cooking wonks of tofu, sometimes marinated, sometimes just lightly browned before tossing the chunks into a sauce or saute. But one evening, I was looking for something different - a part of me was hankering for baked fries, but I didn't really want something as heavy as potatoes. Hmm ... maybe tofu fries or crisps or whatever-you-wanna-call-them?

After puttering around, I went with a seasoning similar to Za'atar (the delicious middle eastern seasoning with sumac, sesame and thyme), but I skipped the thyme and kicked up the spice instead.

Tofu Crisps
Nosh 'em while you work!

Servings: several tens of crisps

1 package extra firm tofu (we often use Nasoya - the texture is very reliable :))
2 T sumac powder
2 T sesame seeds
2 dried red chillies (feel free to up this if you want some serious zingers!)
2 t mustard seeds
2 t middle-eastern saffron
sea salt to taste
4 T extra virgin olive oil

Set the oven to broil.
Lightly saute the sesame seeds, red chillies and mustard seeds in a shallow pan for 1-2 minutes.
Grind these along with the sumac and saffron to a coarse powder.
Add salt and the olive oil to this seasoning and stir till well-blended.

Remove the tofu from the liquid in pack and pat it dry.
Slice the tofu into long thin strips (about 2"-3" long and 1/2" thick) - kind of like french fries.
Toss the tofu strips in the oil+seasoning till the strips are coated well with the spices.
Throw the tofu into a baking pan and broil the pieces till the excess moisture has evaporated and the tofu is browned and crispy.

NOTE:

A toaster oven works perfectly for this. Just set the heat setting to 'Broil' and push the 'Toast' lever down so that both the upper and lower elements are on and the tofu can get uniformly browned.


Opinion?

These crisps rocked! They're an awesome alternative to baked potato or sweet potato fries! And they work really well in a salad or with a sandwich. We ended up eating them with mushroom&black-eyed peas burgers -and yes, those warrant a whole different blog post :)

Navarathri goodies!

Got to love dussehra - dolls, dolling up, socializing, trading stories and catching up (often after a whole year!), eating, more eating ... :)

This year, I chose to experiment a bit with our traditional sundal, snacks and dessert recipes and come up with some variations. I started this post several days ago, but the week has been expectedly packed, I'm glad I'm getting to post about these before Navarathri is actually over! :)


Obviously, we needed a sundal of sorts - can't really do without that! After poking around the stuff we had on hand, I finally decided to make a mixed sundal - green channa, kaala channa, garbanzo and corn! The corn was truly a killer addition - the sweetness totally offset the tartness of the lemon juice and added to the crunchiness of the coconut. Yay for a sundal variation!

Sundal Medley

A zillion servings!

2 cups green channa
2 cups kaala channa
1 can chickpeas
1 can corn
3 red chillies - finely chopped
2 green chillies - finely chopped
1 T mustard
1 T cumin
1 t asafoetida
1 T sesame oil
1 t turmeric powder
3 T grated ginger
10-12 curry leaves
1 cup fresh coconut gratings
juice from 2 lemons
salt

Soak the channa in warm water for a few hours and then cook them till tender. Heat the sesame oil and add the mustard. Once it sputters, add the jeera, red and green chillies, ginger, asafoetida and curry leaves. Add the channa, garbanzo and corn. Sprinkle with turmeric and salt and simmer for a few more minutes. Finally toss with the grated coconut and lemon juice.

Happy, very happy!

So, we needed another snack - hmm ... poha? We often make poha for navarathri - sometimes like upma, sometimes with lemon or tamarind. But lately, the poha at the indian stores have not been thick enough and get all clumpy - I really don't like that! So, I went back and forth between using poha and basmati rice and finally settled on poha. Well, that was a minor mistake. I wanted to make mango poha - with a ton of grated raw mango and it ended up all clumpy! Minor disaster! After a few minutes of panicking, I figured I could salvage it by making patties out of the poha and baking them. Hmm ... worth a try!

Used-to-be-poha patties

another zillion servings!

1 lb poha (thickest available)
2 red chillies - chopped
a handful of peanuts
1 t mustard
1 t urad dal
1 T channa dal
2 raw mangoes - grated
1 t turmeric
salt
10 curry leaves
1 t oil

Heat the oil in a wok and add the mustard. Once it sputters, throw in the curry leaves, peanuts, urad dal, channa dal and red chillies. Once browned, add the grated mango, turmeric and salt. Cook for a few minutes. In the meantime, add some water to the poha to soften it. This often ends up being tricky - I add a little water at a time, wait for it to soak up and then add more. The poha seemed pretty happy till I added the mango mix and then it seemed a little too clumpy.

*grrr*! Time to bake! Heat oven to 450 F. Grease a large baking tray and make patties out of handfuls of the poha mix and bake these in the oven for about 20 minutes. Flip the patties over, douse them with some oil spray and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Wow! These turned out pretty good. Really, really surprising, but we were pretty kicked about it :)

Ok, we obviously needed a dessert here. I had read about Ganne ka kheer and really wanted to try it out, but I could only land my hands on a can of sugarcane at my fave latino store La Espinola. I proceeded to extract the juice out of the sugarcane stalks (?!!) using a juicer. Well, 45 minutes and achy hands later, I had about a cup of juice - figured that would have to do! Since that wasn't much juice, I decided to maybe make a kheer with nuts as well as the rice cooked in sugarcane. Hmm ... what we ended up with was a lot different :)

Sugarcane-banana cake in cashew-pistachio milk
Many many servings

Sugarcane-banana cake
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3/4 cup of basmati rice
1 cup sugarcane juice
3 overripe bananas
5 green cardamoms
8 slices of white bread

I cooked about 3/4 cup of rice in the sugarcane juice + 1 cup of water for about 20 minutes till the rice was completely cooked and soft. I tossed in the cardamom and bananas and cooked for another 5 minutes, mashing the rice+bananas along the way. While the mixture cooled, I ground up the bread slices into fresh crumbs. The last step here was the mix the bread crumbs with the rice/banana mix, pour it into a cake pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350 F.

Cashew-Pistachio Milk
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5 cups nonfat milk
1 can condensed milk
a handful of unsalted cashews
another handful of unsalted pistachios
2 T saffron

I cooked the nuts in the milk for about ten minutes. Once cooled, I pureed this milk and set it back on the stove on simmer. Next, I added the condensed milk and saffron kept stirring the milk till it boiled and got thicker. It took another 15-20 minutes of constant stirring before the milk was thick enough for the dessert.

Ok, so the final assembly of our dessert involved submerging a piece of the sugarcane-banana cake in a cup of the milk till it completely soaked up the flavors and got all soft and sweet and yummy! Kind of contrived, a little complicated but totally worth it! :)

Ok, Lakshmi has convinced me, this has got to be my submission for Jihva's Festive Series :) Thanks, Lakshmi!