Dinner!

Tonight was a stroke of kitchen genius on my end. There are more dishes there than I care to count, and I weep at the thought of cleaning up, but dinner was amazing!

First order of business was a cold salad of grains and cucumbers, and a mix of veggies and tofu. Dessert was stewed plums over a banana custard. To be completely honest, the main reason for the mountain of dishes was the fact that all of the grains in the salad required different cooking times, and different water ratios.

Multi-Grain Salad
1 cup cooked Israeli cous cous
1 cup cooked lentils
1 cup cooked barley
1/2 cup orzo
1/2 cup cooked split peas
1 cup finely chopped cucumber
1 TBSP olive oil
1/4 tsp basil
1/2 tsp dill
1/4 tsp marjoram
Juice of half a lemon
Soy sauce to taste
Fresh ground pepper
Finely chopped pickle (optional)

Combine ingredients in a bowl. Serve chilled. With this one, really, feel free to play with the grains. Aim for everything to be roughly the same size.

Hearty Tofu Stir Fry
1 pack extra firm tofu, drained and cubed
1 egg
2 TBSP water
1/4 tsp Chinese 5 spice blend
1/4 tsp Blackening spices
1/4 tsp smoked salt
3 cloves of garlic
1 zucchini
1 pint baby portabella or crimini mushrooms cut into quarters
1 cup fresh or frozen corn
1/4 tsp rosemary
Fresh ground pepper
Soy sauce to taste
Enough olive oil to coat a pan

In a small bowl whisk together egg, water, Chinese spice blend, blackening spices, and salt. Add tofu cubes, and coat evenly. Heat up olive oil in a large skillet, and fry tofu until it is lightly browned. Meanwhile in another skillet, heat up olive oil brown the garlic. Add mushrooms, zucchini, corn, rosemary and soy sauce. Cook until about halfway done (the zucchini will begin to soften, and the mushrooms with begin to give off water), and transfer the veggies to the tofu, and continue to cook until the veggies are completely cooked.