Lunch - May 31, 2009

I made up this Recipe for Health from the New York Times for lunch. It is called Spinach, Tofu and Sesame Stir-Fry and can be found on their website.

I served this in pita bread as suggested but we also ate some plain on the side to keep the bread count down a bit.

I increased the recipe but did not exactly double it. The recipe is based on a half pound of tofu which is a weird amount. I did not double the oil but used roasted peanut oil in place of the canola. I only increased the tofu by half because I had a 12 oz package. I doubled the garlic, ginger, and red pepper flake. I used 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. I more than doubled the spinach to a pound. I increased the sesame seeds by half and doubled the sesame oil.

I like this dish but I don't think I would have liked it as much if it had been made with the higher tofu to spinach ratio in the recipe. The single cooking method on the spinach works okay here with the tofu and the pita. The recipe does not call for pressing the tofu on towel but I did and would recommend that. The recipe also does not call for adding the red pepper but I would suggest adding it with the garlic.

The recipe says that it serves 3, but the two of us ate the "doubled" recipe. I put this "doubled" recipe at 910 calories plus 300 for the pita which put us each at 605 calories each.

I probably won't be planning on making this dish but I will probably call on it occasionally when I am looking in the refrigerator and trying to think of what to make for dinner.

Over all I think the recipes that I tried from the Recipes for Health by Martha Rose Shulman were good and easy. I say easy but I do think that sometimes they rely on you having a history of cooking and shopping on which to fall back. There are not that many in the series that are totally herbivore in nature but I will be checking back for when more are added. I hope they keep the column going.