[Dinner Time] Spicy Vietnamese Lemongrass Tofu Adapation

So I had plans today. Plans to wash the towels and laundry, scrub the stove, do yoga. PLANS.

Then my stomach suddenly freaked out, shortly followed by my head. These plans are being postponed, and replaced with a post and some videogames.

Spicy Vietnamese Lemongrass Tofu Adapation

I'm calling this an adaptation rather than the actual recipe, because I ended up making so many substitutions that I'm pretty sure this dish is nothing like the original recipe. Here is the original recipe. Now, for what I ended up doing (I'm converting it directly from their recipe, because I can't remember how much exactly I used):

2tbsp Black Bean Sauce
About 1tbsp fresh ginger root
2tbsp curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2tbsps plus 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 pound tofu
1tbsp soy sauce
2tbsp olive oil
3tbsp water
3tbsp peanut oil
1 small onion
1tbsp chili paste, or to taste
Peppers, Tomatoes, or whatever vegetables you like
Brown Rice

From there, I think I recall screwing up royally. First off, I'm not sure I actually MARINATED the tofu in soy sauce like the recipe calls for. I do remember I pressed it to get the water out of it, because tofu is near-impossible to stirfry unless you do so. Then I coated the tofu with the black bean sauce, ginger, curry powder, salt, and 1/2 teaspoon sugar.

Then when making the caramelized sugar, I failed to add the extra water, and the caramel solidified in its container. That was interesting. But then I stirfried everything else and let it simmer and got:



A food that won't photograph well.

But taste-wise? It was pretty amazing. All of my haphazard substitutions somehow blended together very well, and forgetting the lemongrass did nothing noticeable to the flavour. It had a good kick to it, though it wasn't as sweet as you may expect from the caramel, likely because I messed up making it.

Of course, I will need to make this again without substituting half of the recipe, but the fact that I did and it still tasted great? Proves that either I know how flavours work better than I realize, or that the recipe has a solid foundation.

8.5/10 either way. I even enjoyed the leftovers.

Until next time...

Tschuess.

Politics & Life

I got my mail-in ballots yesterday, and dear god, no wonder California is broke. How many proposals exactly do we NEED anyway? And why do they all cost the state hordes of money? We really don't need to label genetically-engineered food; I think the state can let go of that proposal and expense.

This also means I get to figure out which loser candidate is going to get my vote this year. Last election I voted for Ralph Nader. This year it's likely going to be the Green Party candidate even though I know if she won? She wouldn't be able to do even half of what she proposes.

But it's that way with every candidate. The way the system works? Presidential candidates can spew all they want, but the only way they could get what they promise done is a) if they launched the most executive orders ever or b) if by some miracle both houses ended up with a major majority of their party. Even then? Good luck. Supreme Court will shoot some stuff down, people will critique this or that, and suddenly the massive conglomeration that is the United States Government will start turning and prevent the crazy-ass things that everyone promises.

Still, it's better to have a set of proposals and stick with them, otherwise you'll end up on a site like Mitt Romney's Flip Flops..

I need to watch clips of the debates at some point before I vote. I don't plan to vote for either of them, but I've heard they both were shitshows in their own ways, and I live in the US. I might as well watch the circus that is our current political system.

I'm not sure what can reform it to get it away from this, besides lots of education of the public so that things like Fox News and MSNBC aren't considered accurate.

Those of you out of the US: I really hope your political environment is a little less batshit insane than ours. And for those out there who live in a volatile area, like Pakistan (where a 14-year-old activist was shot by the Taliban in an assassination attempt because she dared think women should have a right to schooling): I just wish I had the money in the world to fix it.

Tschuess.