Monday, May 21, 2007

Woo Hoo!

With the Ottawa Senators having clinched a spot in the Stanley Cup finals, I can now divert my attention from biting my nails to cooking - for about a week.

A couple of weeks ago, Kyle mentioned how he had ordered General Tao's chicken from a local Chinese take-out. After telling me how it tasted pretty bad, I recalled how I'd seen many on the PPK rave about a version of General Tao's tofu. I found the recipe, and made an attempt to make homemade take-out that would compete with Kyle's former meal.

And compete it did! I thought it was weird to use 3/4 cup of cornstarch to coat the tofu, and was a little worried that I wasn't frying it in enough oil (the tofu had globs of gellied cornstarch for the first 8 minutes), but they turned out great. We added 1/2 of each red and yellow peppers, but next time, we both agreed to double the sauce. There just wasn't much to coat the noodles, and I don't think it had anything to do with me mistakingly adding only 4 teaspoons of sugar instead of the whopping 4 tablespoons the recipe called for.


For dessert, I thought I'd try to do something different, yet still summery. Kyle and I have gotten into the habit of snacking on soy ice cream, and with bikini season nearly here, I was seeking an alternative. I thought I'd whip up my own creation. I can't say that I will make this again. I puréed 3 mangoes, 1 box of silken tofu, 1/2 cup sugar, the rind of one lime and the juice of half a lime. I let it sit in the fridge, but it didn't turn out as mousse-like or as mango-ey as I had hoped. After Kyle ate his share, he decided to have his usual Peanut Butter Zig-Zag soy ice cream.

2 comments:

Kati said...

Your tofu looks awesome! I have been meaning to try that recipe out. 3/4 cup of cornstarch, though??

Your mango pudding looks good - sorry it still couldn't compete with the soy cream. Next time, you could just whip up some frozen mango and frozen banana for mango sorbet - easy and delicious (although I'm not sure that could compete with PB zig-zag, either ;).

Unknown said...

Kati - your suggestion for the frozen mango/banana concoction sounds SOOO good! I'm definitely going to try that out!

As for the 3/4 cup of cornstarch, yes, it's true. I think it calls for so much because a bunch ends up clumped in the bowl and isn't all that useful for covering the tofu. It's definitely worth it though!