A new kind of comfort food

After a shite day at work, I walked around in the rain and wind and mulled over what to have for dinner. The final verdict, brown rice, wilted red kale topped with pesto fried tofu (or tofu fried pesto...). After a soothing hour in the kitchen I enjoyed this beautiful meal. I've decided that I am going to start blogging about the vegetarian recipes that I try. There are three reasons for this. 1) I have been defaulting to pasta and other simple carbohydrates while veggies and random forms of protein (tofu, legumes etc) have gone out the window 2) I've been enjoying reading Brandon's blog about all of the new recipes that he's making... unfortunately most of them contain meat 3) A coworker of mine, Erin (and here), is newly veg and has been updating her fbook status with wonderful veg friendly recipes.
I think we can all learn something from each others cooking adventures. If not, well at least now these recipes are written out and not just in my head. I think we've all learnt I'm a big fan of dum dee dumming (This is what Dad calls making things up as he goes along) so some of the measures will be a splash, shake, handful or other vague kind of measurement. The joy of this is that you make the dish your own. Add more of what you love and less of what you don't. I believe this makes food that much more enjoyable (and fun to cook).

Wilted Red Kale & Pesto Fried Tofu

Rice: 1 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup wild rice, 1 1/2 cup veggie stock, 1 1/2 cup water. Make rice.
Tofu & Kale:
12 stems Red kale (or regular kale... but the colour was appealing) to prep kale, take a single stalk with the stem pointing to the ceiling, the leaves/leaf towards your counter, grasp stalk between thumb and forefinger and... well lets just say if it was a cat, you'd be petting it backwards. All the leaves should peel off the stem and the stem (which is usually too fibrous and woody) goes into your compost
1 pack firm tofu cut into cubes (not little cubes... medium sized cubes)
3 generous splashes of soy sauce
1 tbsp vegetable (or olive) oil
1 to 1 1/2 tsp chopped garlic
1 thumb size nub of ginger, finely grated (keep in mind, I have fat thumbs... so in this case, more is better)
1 handful of sesame seeds
2 tbsp pesto (or you can chop up basil... but I was lazy once and found this to make a much tastier recipe! Work smarter, not harder ;) )

Put cubes of tofu and soy sauce in a container and shake to evenly coat tofu with soy sauce. Set aside. Cook rice.
After rice is half cooked, heat oil in a wok (unless you want to individually flip the cubes... but I like using a wok so I can toss the tofu to flip it... sometimes it makes a mess, sometimes I can actually throw the tofu and catch it in the wok). Once oil is heated, add garlic. Saute garlic.
Add tofu to garlic and oil. If there is excess soy sauce, do not put it in the pan just yet. Instead, set it aside. You'll use it later. Start water (with a bit of salt, preferably Himalayan Salt) to boil for kale) and let it boil. Kale should not be in the pot just yet.
Cook tofu until almost browned on all sides. While it's cooking, grate ginger and stir together.
Just before tofu is almost done, add kale to your boiling pot of water (don't forget the steamer bit). Keep a close eye on the kale, you don't want it to get mushy. Just wilt it. It should still have texture.
To the tofu, add soy sauce. Stir. Toss in sesame seeds. Stir. Spoon in pesto. Stir and it finish cooking for a minute or so.
Hopefully everything has timed correctly and you should be ready to eat. Enjoy!

Up next... I am going to try to find my vegetarian chili recipe! With this rainy weather it's time to bust out the chili's and soups :) Yum!