Alethea in real life...

So dear friends, I feel sadly inadequate when it comes to contributing to this blog, but nevertheless, I will do my best!

Let's be honest - I'm a lazy person. Especially when I'm tired after working all day. Hence, I get home and feel largely unmotivated to make myself dinner. Yes, I know, you gals work/study all day and still have the energy and commitment to cook for yourselves. For that I applaud you. This is not to say that I go out to eat every night or heat up Lean Pockets in the micro either. Yuck. Most of the time, I reheat leftovers from lunch or from going out to eat some other time, or I make a salad or a sandwich, or I heat up some Trader Joe's Indian food (surprisingly very tasty and a very good price). I'll chronicle my few attempts with cooking down below... but first, a few thoughts on why I haven't made a huge effort to cook since "growing up":

1. The point stated above - I'm tired when I get home and don't want to have to go through a ton of prep to have dinner ready. I'm also lazy and would rather eat right away.
2. Food (and everything) in NYC is SO expensive. Because of that, I usually only buy the essentials when I go grocery shopping - stuff for sandwiches, salad, breakfast food, snacks, etc. I don't tend to buy stuff in the off chance I'll be cooking since it's pricey. This includes everything from onions to sugar (two things which I finally bought today so I could try to cook more). When there are times I want to cook, I don't have the stuff I need... My roommates don't either, so then I just fall back on the same old, same old.
3. Sometimes it's also a lack of forethought. If I get out of work early enough and I realize that I can make X for dinner, but need Y, then I can at least go get that from the grocery store on my way home. But I often don't think of that until I'm home.

So that's some of my ramblings. With regards to the price of food here, it also requires a lot of time and energy to figure out which store has what for the cheapest and to then plan ahead so that I can get everything I need from the various places for the cheapest. Sigh, the cost of living in NYC!! What I wouldn't give to go back to Vt....

For dinner tonight I did cook. I baked a sweet potato - unfortunately not for long enough since it was slightly undercooked, but that's ok. Broiled a chicken sausage and had some salad too. Nice, balanced, didn't take too long or require too much preparation.

For my next post, I'll give you the recipe for a rice salad thing I made when I was fed up with all the random food I had and wanted to make something with it...

In Defense of Tofu

I'll admit, tofu used to really weird me out. However, tofu and I have come to terms. So here are some ideas:

"Natural tofu"- not bad in wraps with some veggies and hummus, or any other sauce. Or, with rice or couscous. I really like making a ton of couscous and then adding in some tofu to give it a little protein.

Stir-fried- if you have any curry paste, that works great. otherwise, just add a little oil and whatever spices/veggies you want until the tofu get a little color. Make sure you press the tofu first (with paper towels or a dish towel or something) because they'll cook better if they're dried out. Also, try coconut milk with tofu and some spices over rice...Sometimes I coat the tofu in cornstarch (some people dip it in egg and then cornstarch) so it'll get a little bit crunchier.

Baked- haven't tried this, but I saw a recipe for it on allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Baked-Tofu-Bites/Detail.aspx) Coat the tofu in sauce (this one looks like it basically uses barbecue sauce) and then bake in the oven until crispy.

p.s. I was very impressed with your tofu burger until I saw that it wasn't actually your burger in the picture...but interesting idea!

What Do I Do With the Tofu?

Friends. I bought a block of tofu last week. Which is great for putting on my salad, but now I have run out of vegetation and there will be no more salads until I make it to the market in a few days. Tonight I tried to make a "tofu burger" with eggs and rice and bread and other wonderful things, but it tasted more like an omelet than anything else. Ideas?

(My tofu burger did not look this good.)