Easy, Flavorful Broiled Tofu
Plus, 5 Dinners in Real Life
Hi there!
February has been a month filled with the regular, unexciting busyness of life. You know that saying about raising kids, the days are long but the years are short. . . it perfectly describes the early years of babies and toddlers but in my experience doesn’t apply at all to raising teens and tweens. These days, it’s more like, the days are an exhausting blur and the years go by even faster.
I reached a point recently where I felt like all I did every day was work, school pick-up, sports drop-offs and pick-ups, grocery shopping or laundry and cooking dinner (in that exact order, every day, five days a week). It was not much different for my husband. Living like that is possible but not sustainable if you value your physical well-being and happiness. I end up going into “robot mode” which means I stop thinking about my own needs and just power through every day. It’s not fun being a robot and I think my husband and kids will agree that it’s not fun living with one either!
We changed our family schedule around and now every Wednesday I have time exercise after work and enjoy an unscheduled evening. There’s nowhere we have to be. This small change has made a huge difference. It gives me a few hours midweek to catch my breathe, focus on my own well-being and be at home instead of in the car. The photo below is from my jog through the neighborhood this week, where winter flowers are blooming alongside spiky succulents. The weather is cooler, but not cold. It really is my favorite time of year in LA.
This Week’s Recipe: Broiled Tofu
My recipe for broiled tofu has been getting a lot of praise on my blog lately. I’m really glad that so many people have been giving it a try and loving it! I’ve been making broiled tofu a lot lately too. It’s an easy recipe and very flavorful.
The secret ingredient is coconut aminos, which I always buy at Trader Joe’s but you can find at other grocery stores, too (Trader Joe’s coconut aminos has the best flavor and price.) You can also use coconut aminos to flavor meat, salmon, rice, noodles and vegetables. It’s very similar to soy sauce, but usually slightly sweeter.
Below is a quick lesson in making broiled tofu. You can find the full recipe HERE.
Step 1: Press moisture out of the tofu for about 10 minutes. I keep meaning to buy a tofu press, which makes the job easier, but you can also follow the instructions in the recipe that explain how to just wrap the tofu in a towel & set something heavy on top.
Step 2: Line an 8x8 pan with foil then combine the sauce ingredients in the pan (toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, coconut aminos, maple syrup). Lay the slices of tofu in the pan then flip the slices so both sides are lightly coated in the sauce.
Step 3: Broil the tofu for 5 minutes. Rotate the pan under the broiler. Broil 3 to 5 minutes more, until the tofu has mostly soaked up the sauce and is deeply browned. Flipping the tofu slices over and broiling the backside for another 3 minutes is optional. That’s it! The tofu is flavorful, browned and delicious.
Dinner in Real Life
I’m always curious about what other families are eating, aren’t you? I hope that my week of real life dinners will provide helpful recipes & cooking ideas for your family.
Here’s what my crew ate recently
MONDAY: In-N-Out Burgers. The kids and I drove back from visiting my parents in Arizona and the windy weather + traffic made the drive longer than usual. As the wind shimmied my car back and forth in the narrow freeway lane while dirt and sand blew across my windshield, I tried to ignore the bleak landscape and tell myself that at least driving through a sandstorm in January is better than driving through a snowstorm. Maybe?
Anyways, for dinner we always stop for burgers at In-N-Out when we make it through the long, dry desert and reach the edge of civilization again (right around Palm Springs).
TUESDAY: Angel hair pasta + jarred marinara. This was a very quick dinner made during the short 45 minutes I had between getting home and needing to leave again for the kids’ swim practice. I often buy Trader Joe’s Three Cheese Pomodoro Pasta Sauce, but this week Rao’s was on sale so we had “fancy” marinara. I added canned chickpeas to my pasta for protein. One of my kids ate a sandwich instead of pasta. Did any of us eat any vegetables? I can’t remember.
WEDNESDAY: Roasted chicken thighs, veggies & chickpeas + couscous. I roasted chicken thighs on a sheet-pan with sliced carrots and cauliflower and leftover canned chickpeas. Everything was tossed in olive oil and seasoned with a few spices like turmeric, coriander, curry powder and smoked paprika. I served the meal with with couscous on the side. Leftovers were really delicious for lunch the next day!
THURSDAY: Burgers (for the kids). Sorin and I ate leftovers and salad but I made burgers for the kids, even though we’d just had them on Monday. One of my kids is going through a growth spurt and suddenly has a much bigger appetite. She’s also my more particular eater, so it can be hard to figure out what she’ll actually eat and believe me, you want to get calories in this kid before she turns hangry. A burger always does the trick.
Burger recipe → When I cook burgers on the stove, I make thin patties (four burgers from 1# of ground beef). I sear the burgers on one side in a hot cast iron skillet for about 2 minutes, occasionally pushing the meat down with a fork to keep it from swelling up and shrinking. Then I then flip the patties and put the skillet in a pre-heated 375F oven for about 8 minutes (adding cheese at the end) until the burgers are cooked through. We always serve “Awesome Sauce” with our burgers, which is roughly 1/4 cup of mayo mixed with 2 tablespoons ketchup and a generous drizzle of pickle juice. Adjust the flavor to your liking (we like the sauce when it tastes slightly more like ketchup than mayo). I also often serve Trader Joe’s frozen french fries with burgers.
FRIDAY: Salmon + steamed potatoes + broccoli. I melted a tablespoon of butter and poured it over the salmon before baking it at 375F for about 15 minutes. The yellow potatoes were quartered and steamed in the Instant Pot (for 9 minutes, natural release) and the broccoli was steamed on the stove.
Reading
I recently pulled my Kindle out of the drawer where it’s been for the past year and used the Libby app to reserve a few books from the library. I still prefer reading hardcover books at home but I’ve figured out that a Kindle is perfect for reading at work during my lunch break.
At work I try to read books that are easy to dip in and out of, and Maggie Smith’s memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, is really easy to read in short bursts. Smith is a poet, and I enjoyed her memoir both for its lyrical writing and for her meditations on marriage, relationships, motherhood and her renewed commitment to herself after a divorce. It feels strange to say I enjoyed reading a book about a woman’s painful divorce, but this book really is enjoyable. It’s funny, poignant, bittersweet and a quick read.
Next Up: The next book I plan to read on my Kindle is The Most by Jessica Anthony
That’s it for this week! It’s pouring rain right now, which is a welcome relief from the dry weather of the past few months. Hope you all stay warm wherever you are, and happy Valentine’s Day!
xo
Jenny