Recap of Day #2

Berry Smoothie

Hannaford's Salad Bar ($5)
Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing

Trail Mix
Tazo Tea with Organic Honey

Dinner was amazing! After my bootcamp class, I got home around 7:30pm and felt like cooking (instead of sitting on the sofa watching TV like most nights). Opened the almost empty fridge and rummaged around to see what I could put together. Let's see, veggie drawer, veggie drawer....what are you hiding....Ahhh, sweet potatoes! Little bit of kale....onions....garlic....roma tomatoes.....Ohhhhh there's some firm tofu!

I can honestly say, I've never made either of these 3 items before.

I like experimenting in the kitchen! I've made tofu more times than I can count, but just found out I was not properly letting it drain. Silly me. So remove your tofu from the packaging, drain all water. Grab a large amount of paper towels. Place the tofu inside and put something moderately heavy on the tofu. I put my half empty tea pot on top. Checked it every 10 mins, and shifted the tofu around in the paper towel. Changed them out once, you can't believe how much water will come out. Takes about 30-60 mins to drain completely. I was impatient and went with 30 mins.

Curry Powder, Black Pepper, Salt, Chili Powder, Garlic, Sweet Potato

So I began by chopping up the sweet potato into small chunks. Put them in a mixing bowl and drizzled some Extra Virgin Olive Oil, sprinkled some pepper, salt, chili powder and curry powder and spread them out on a baking sheet. Then chopped up the 3 cloves of garlic and spread them over the potatoes.

Preheat the oven to 470 and place the sheet on the second highest rack. Cook for 10 mins, then flip them over, cook another 10-15mins. Keep an eye on them so they don't burn. You want them a little crispy though so some browning is good. 

Then begin prepping the items for the kale as shown below. 4 leafs of kale, 1/4 sweet onion, 3 gloves garlic, 1 sprig of rosemary chopped, 1 roma tomato. 

Coat a saute pan with 2-3 tablespoons olive oil, set on medium. Place onion, garlic, rosemary and tomatoes in the pan once hot. Let simmer for 5 mins. 

Add chopped kale. Simmer on medium for 10 mins, stirring occasionally. Once kale darkens in color, turn to low heat. Drizzle another tablespoon of olive oil and let simmer on low until the rest of the food is done.

I failed at taking pix of the tofu, it was frying, making a huge mess and I panicked and raced through it. My b-yo. Slice the tofu in half the long way, then cut into triangles. I took 1 teaspoon honey mustard, 3-4 teaspoons soy sauce and Frank's Red Hot Sweet Chili, about 1/4-1/2 cup. Mix together. I used my cast iron skillet, coat with 2 tablespoons olive oil set to medium heat. Let the pan heat up before placing tofu. Dunk (yes I'm using the word dunk) the tofu in the marinade mix coating every side. Place each piece in the pan. You may want to use a screen shield, those suckers pop like crazy, oil went everywhere. Cook each side of tofu for about 5 mins, not letting them burn. Flip to the other side for another 5 mins. Wallah! Yummy gooey delicious tofu!

Honey Mustard, Soy, Sweet Chili Marinade on Fried Tofu
Curry Spiced Sweet Potatoes
Garlic Onion Tomato Kale

How amazing does that look?! That was my dinner! Who says being vegan is boring???? That was one of the best meals I've made in a long time, all with left overs in the fridge!

Recap: My stomach is feeling a lot better today. I woke up feeling less bloated, and seemed to have more energy. And I made it a whole day without chips! (Self pat on the back.) I substituted for the trail mix. Nuts however act like scrubbing bubbles in my belly so things seemed to clean it's self out yesterday. Little rumbly in there. I'm looking forward to the day ahead and slowly realizing that this is not as bad as my brain was leading me to believe. Happy Friday!