Pan-fried tofu & couscous "gratin"

It's been raining for about 2 weeks (or maybe 3 I'm not even sure anymore) without a sunny day, and yesterday afternoon I found myself in an enjoyable experience: under the rain. I always try to leave school at the time my bf leaves work so we can go back home together. Here's his lunch for today!

There is a pile with couscous underneath, fresh tomato slices, cheese and oregano. On the lower part I put some snow-peas and some stir-fried tofu "steaks" (slices).

The tofu is an old recipe from my mum (or at least one of my favourite ones she made a long time ago).

She always uses extra-firm tofu (something like cheese tofu) boils it until nearly cooked. Then grabs a frying pan, slice sthe tofu, some chopped garlic, a bit of olive oil and some soy sauce. She Pan-fries it until golden brown on each side (or at least make sure it's stiff on each side because you might not be able to see the golden with the soy sauce). When it's cooked, just eat it warm and it'll be delicious.

Since it's been cold, my bf's been warming up his food in the microwave from work so I made use of that aspect to plan the food.

The tomato-cheese-oregano idea came from something I made in summer called "pan pizza" which is made of bread with tomato slices, cheese, salt and oregano on top, then slightly grilled or baked in the oven until the cheese melts, making it look like some sort of pizza.

I was quite surprised when he actually said he LIKED the tofu, usually he says "mm" or "it's okay". I might be doing some more tofu recipes because it's cheaper than meat and this month's budget is super tight for me at least, having to pay school and some workshops.

I'll leave you with the little adventure "underwater" :D stay safe and warm!

Yesterday, instead of taking the bus from my school to my bf's work, I walked half the way with a classmate, went through a shopping centre, did some quick shopping and went out. It was raining quite a bit when I left the centre but I would never expect the rain to get THAT worse... in 3 minutes I was on the tips of my toes avoiding giant puddles and when I reached some stairs, they had turned into small waterfall. In 15 minutes (which was the time I took door to door because I stopped for about 5 in the rain jut looking around and listening, I love rain ^^) the main road was a river, and I am not exaggerating.

At some point I regretted waiting on the rain because it got so hard even the umbrella couldn't stop it from dripping on me.

When it stopped raining, my bf went out of work (lucky bastard, he never gets the heavy rain) and we had to cross the road to get the bus, the problem was on the "crossing" part... We tried thinking of different paths but we'd always have to cross the road with half a meter of water on each side. We reached a point where half the zebra crossing was covered in water. At that moment,  the bus came and we ended up running in water, to catch it, which reached to 1/4 of my legs. With all that water, the result was 1h and a half ride home of really slow buses and flooded streets.

Leftovers & Veggies

I thought I'd be able to get creative after a great day in the kitchen, but I ended up just caring for the healthy rather than the cute.

This is the first time I've ever put peas on his lunch because he said he hated them 2 years ago :P I guess that's changed because he didn't complain. When I made this, I wanted to put some kiwi on a cup but since he wanted to microwave his lunch, I put it on a small tupperware aside. Maybe I'll get this solved after I get a little something I'll be sure to show here and talk about it! Until then, we'll just have to wait and stick to the tupperwares and separating microwaveable from non microwaveable.

Spinach Ricotta Cannelloni & Miso Tofu

I finally got my hands onto Ricotta cheese!

I haven't done much cooking lately because the bf was away and then we had visits, so I finally got a chance to do something.

I finally checked on the ricotta cheese price and decided to buy some to try this recipe. I have tried it in several vegetarian restaurants and was always curious to make them.So I grabbed the cheese, some spinach, an egg, mixed and seasoned it:

The challenge on filling the cannelloni came when I tried to do it with a spoon. It wouldn't go in as I expected and had some air bubbles inside the pasta. To fight that, I grabbed a freezing bag what wasn't gonna be used ever again due to sealing problems, filled it with the spinach-ricotta mix, cut a small hole on one of the corners and squeezed this inside the cannelloni. It became a lot faster and fun! I was hoping the mix would never end and I'd keep filling the pasta :D

I would recommend using also tomato sauce on top of the cannelloni, I found it kind of boring after the 4th bite or so. It had a very soft taste and i missed some surprise in the middle.This is something you can make a lot you can freeze it in individual portions for when you want to bake it. I made 2 layers of cannelloni but they always stick and I couldn't take them out without ruining the presentation. You can just prepare it in one layer with individual portions, that way it'll look very pretty even after on the plate.

Also, this week my mum bought some hard tofu for me.I was raised eating hard tofu but recently I had 1 year of eating fresh made tofu so I was very surprised by the hardness of the tofu. I'm not really sure how they process it nor the original name of this type of tofu but the store names it "Tofu cheese".

I wanted to mix the soft taste of tofu with something strong so I'd have a mild flavour, so I went with miso. I found a recipe in here and followed it, except for the rice vinegar, I couldn't get any.

The miso marinade was too strong and I ended up having to remove some of the paste on top of the tofu when I reheat it.

It was a very pleasant day in the kitchen and I even organized a shopping list with articles I can only get at a small chinese supermarket. I hope they still have those fried tofu skins (aburaage)!