Vegetarian Night

Divertion: Before I go on, I want to say what a beautiful glorious day today is!!!! Perfect cool weather; not too cold, not too hot! Perfect blue skies that make you want to just stay out door and have a leisurely picnic by a perfect newly mowed green lawn! Feels like beginnings of Autumn!! My favorite season!! LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!! All I want to do is bake and bake and bake!! LOL I don't know what yet but I think I'll come up with something and better now and later with the great weather as an inspiration and motivation!





Every now and then we have what I would call pseudo vegetarian night. Pseudo because it's not ALWAYS 100% vegetarian, I would say, 90% vegetarian?? Anyway, last Saturday night was one of those nights. We usually have it once a week (well, at least I try to make it once a week!!) and I just used whatever veges I had left in the fridge before doing grocery. You know, like a "cleansing" for the fridge AND the body!! :)

I made these two dishes and a soup to go with plain white rice. It was really tasty and we pretty much finished everything! And the biggest surprise is that my boy who's usually picky with what he eats would actually eat the veges AND drank the soup (chinese pear soup, to be posted later!) and asked for more! Now he couldn't stop asking for soup for each meal!!! LOL!! What a funny chap! Oh yah, did I mention that Ethan loves to drink his soup off the big soup ladle????

Sesame Garlic Spinach recipe (serving 2 adults + 1 fussy toddler)
Ingredient
-1 bunch of spinach
-2 pods of garlic, minced
-1.5 TBS sesame oil
-Sea Salt (I always use sea salt, but use whatever salt you have at hand)

Method
-Wash all the gritty sand from the spinach, blanched them in boiling water and removed them into a colander to drain.
-Then using a muslim cloth, squeeze all the water from the cooked blanched spinach. Try to squeeze as much of the liquid from it as possible.
-Cut the dried spinch into bite size pieces and put in on a plate.
-At low heat, add sesame oil and garlic at the same time. Sesame oil has a low smoking point andwill start to smoke at even a low temp which is why add the garlic together to get a good infusion and that will also garanteed that the garlic's cooked.
-Once the garlic's cooked which you would know from the immediate smoking from the oil, removed from heat and add enough salt to taste.
-Immediately pour this infused oil into the drained spinach and mixed it all up. Add toasted sesame seeds if wished for garnish or just for the extra crunch!

Marinated Tofu Recipe
Ingredients
- 5- spiced marinated tofu (can always get this at any asian grocery store. They are already pre-marinated), at least 5-6 pieces, sliced
-1 TBS Sesame Oil
-"Oyster" sauce, (I always use the vegetarian version, but use whatever oyster sauce you have)
-Sugar
-Salt (if still needed)
-Sesame Seeds, toasted

Method
-Rinsed the tofu pieces and dry before slicing it thin.
-Heat oil at low heat and add the tofu into in and give it a stir.
-Add oyster sauce, sugar and salt to give it taste.
-Plate and add the seeds for garnish.

Note: They are as "vegetarian" as I can get them, not true vegetarian I supposed but they are quick to make, tasty and most of all, delude me into thinking that somehow I can skip a few taebo episodes!! :) Enjoy!