Lunches for Aji's First and Second Days of School

Tuesday

The first day of playgroup/school for my baby, who is now a big 3.5 year-old!  She asked for green noodles for lunch.  I asked if she wanted spinach linguini, what I normally make the girls, or green tea soba noodles.  She chose the green tea sobas!

Lunches:

Green tea soba noodles (cook according to package, then rinse under cold water)

Stir-fried "duck"-style seitan (not really sure what made it veggie "duck," seemed like pretty standard seitan) and chopped yellow pepper

Raw cucumber wedges and yellow pepper slices

Sauteed cremini and shiitake mushrooms 

Organic cherries

Prep:

I chopped and sauteed the mushrooms the night before in organic extra virgin olive oil and organic canola oil.  I also cut the cucumber wedges and pepper spears.

In the morning, I cooked the noodles, chopped the seitan and pepper, and stir-fried the seitan and peppers.  I kept everything separated (sometimes the girls are picky about mixing food or like to mix their own) when I packed with little silicone containers.  I put the cherries on top of the noodles.

I tried making a little smiley face out of a cucumber and tofutti cheese slice for Aji, but by the time we got to school, her backpack had taken several tumbles down stairs and around the car, so it was no longer a smiley face.  Have to work on the cuteness factor!  Need to read up on those tutorials.  ;-P

I mixed everything together (except the cherries) for my lunch.  Thought it was pretty good, but whatever spices were used in the faux duck seitan were a little weird.  Jacqui liked the seitan better than the mushrooms, which just didn't make any sense to me at all.  (She's had no school since her first day, so has been eating lunch with me every day.)  Aji ate most of the noodles at school and two of the cherries, and then we finished the rest off at home.  Noodles were a definite success.  Not sure about the seitan though.  

Wednesday

For lunches today (Wednesday), Aji asked for tofu scramble.  I love tofu scramble lunches because I know they will eat everything!  Any veggie can go in and it will be eaten, even if it is *gasp* a mushroom!!!

Lunches:

Tofu scramble

Organic grapes

Yellow pepper slices

Pitette (small pita)

Prep: 

Had I not fallen asleep when I put the girls to bed last night, I would have actually prepped all the veggies, especially the broccoli that needed to be used today.  But alas, I needed SLEEP, so everything was done this morning, except for shredding the zucchini, which I did over the weekend.  

The nice thing about tofu scramble is that you can really make it with whatever veggies you have and it will taste delicious.  You just have to take care with the order in which you add things to cook so that the harder veggies, like onion and sweet potatoes, have longer to cook than the shredded zucchini.

Ingredients for tofu scramble:

Extra virgin olive oil, canola oil, or safflower oil

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 medium sweet potato, cubed

1/2 cup chopped red, orange, and yellow peppers

1/2 cup shredded zucchini

1 cup chopped mushrooms

1 block firm tofu

Tumeric

Sea salt

Nutritional yeast

1-2 plum tomatoes, chopped

What to do: 

Heat the oil over medium heat, add onions and saute while cutting the sweet potato.  Add the sweet potato and continue to saute as you cut the peppers and chop the mushrooms.  Add the chopped pepper and mushrooms and saute.  Add the shredded zucchini, saute.  Drain the tofu (but do not press) and crumble into the pan, saute.  Add the tumeric, to get to the color you want.  Add sea salt and nutritional yeast to taste, continue to saute.  Check that sweet potatoes and mushrooms are cooked and turn off heat.  Add the chopped tomatoes.  

The tofu scramble took about 30 minutes to cook today, with all the different veggies.  Cooking time varies based on the amount of prep you've done and the types and sizes of veggies that you are using. 

To pack: 

I put the tofu scramble into the large (bottom) part of the girls' bentos today.  Wished I hadn't for Aji because it came home with tumeric-colored liquid all in her lunch bag.  [Note to self: Aji's lunches have too much motion involved to be unsealed or too cute.]

Top section had a pitette cut in half (in which to stuff the tofu scramble for easier eating), two slices of yellow pepper, and organic grapes. 

New school year, new school lunches

Jacqui started kindergarten today.  It's an all-day affair here in New York, five days a week. So that means that I have lunches to make six days a week for two kids now.  Last year was four days a week, three days of playgroup and one day of Chinese school. This year five days of school and one day of Chinese school.  I'm going to try to post a few days a week the lunches I make them.  Wish me luck!


Lunches so far this week

Wednesday 
trip to the aquarium
Spinach linguini with soy vinaigrette
Green olives
Veggie spring rolls
Honest Kids juices for both girls

Thursday 
Jacqui's first day of kindergarten
Cold soba noodles (with ponzu sauce for Jacqui)
Cucumber half moons
Cherries
Green olives
Tofu cats (tofu coated in my mix and fried in safflower oil -- see below)
Reusable container of vanilla soy yogurt for Jacqui
Honest kids apple juice drink for Jacqui 

Coating mix
Spelt flour
Organic cornstarch
Whole wheat pastry flour
Sea salt
Nutritional yeast
Black sesame seeds
White sesame seeds

Method for Tofu Cats (or other shapes)

I slice a block of extra firm tofu into four equal slices and then use cookie cutters to make shapes for the girls.  We have a huge assortment of shapes (thanks, Mom!.  The girls' favorites are the cat and papillon (butterfly).  Hearts and stars are big hits too.  After cutting out the shapes, I coat the tofu in my coating mix (front and back) and then fry the tofu on both sides in organic safflower or canola oil.  I generally also make standard rectangles out of the tofu and fry those up for the girls' lunches, but today I decided to give them each two tofu cats and I kept the rectangles for my own lunch.

Hot! Pink! Noodles!

Hot Pink Noodles
(or Noodles with Beet Greens and Tofu or Garbanzos)

Ingredients
1 package of noodles (quick cooking Asian noodles are best for this recipe)
1 bunch beet greens (2 cups chopped) [any greens will work, but the beet greens will make the noodles PINK!]
1/2 - 2 cups cooked garbanzos or 1 package of tofu
canola oil
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
2 T organic sugar

1/3 cup lime juice

1/4 cup Bragg's or other soy sauce

pinch red pepper flakes

To make

Fill a large pot with water, and place it over high heat to boil.  Wash, then chop or tear the beet greens into bite-sized pieces. 

Heat canola oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Dice the tofu and toss it into the pan.  Saute it until the pieces are golden and crispy.  If using garbanzos, just saute for a few minutes, then set aside.

To make the sauce, combine the peanut butter, sugar, lime juice, Bragg's, and red pepper flakes in a bowl.

By now your water should be boiling.  Add the noodles and greens -- you may need to stagger depending on the type of greens and noodles.  You want them to be finished cooking at the same time.  For the noodles I generally use, they take 5-6 minutes, which is about the same time that I use for the beet greens. 

Once they are cooked, drain the greens and noodles in a strainer, and return to the pot.  Add the sauce, and toss to coat the greens and noodles.  Add the tofu or garbanzos, and gently toss.  Serve the hot pink noodles immediately, and refrigerate any left-overs.

Enjoy!

Tofu Pancakes Stuffed with Mushrooms and Spinach

After talking to my work cafe's chef about Vegan Brunch and the tofu omelet recipe that made me buy the book, I decided to make them for dinner last night.

I used the boxed silken soft tofu because that was the only thing the Met supermarket had. I also used 1/2 the black salt that the recipe calls for, arrowroot powder instead of corn starch, and the two garlic cloves suggested in the recipe.

Jacqui and Adrianna helped me get all the ingredients together into the food processor and helped me wash the mushrooms for the stuffing. Jacqui said that she *loved* each ingredient as we put it into the food processor.

Adrianna decided that I *had* to hold her as I was making the pancakes (as Jacqui called them) and making the filling.

Filling ingredients
one large box of white organic mushrooms, rinsed and chopped
1 T olive oil
fresh rosemary, tarragon, and oregano from my mom's garden, chopped
fresh spinach
grated vegan cheddar-style cheese

What to do
Heat the olive oil over medium heat while you start the first tofu pancake. Spread the pancake thin using a spatula.
Add the mushrooms and the chopped fresh herbs, and stir fry. The mushrooms will let out their juices, keep stirring and cooking until those have evaporated. Stir to make sure that nothing burns.
Make all of the tofu pancakes, placing them between two plates to keep them warm while you are finishing up the rest of the pancakes and the filling.
Jacqui and Dave grated the vegan cheese up.
To make the stuffed pancakes: put fresh spinach, mushroom mixture, and vegan cheese on one half of a pancake. Fold over, then heat over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, to let everything mush together a little. Serve and enjoy!

Outcome
Dave really liked these; I made his without the vegan cheese because he's a little wary of it. Jacqui loved the tofu pancakes and ate hers up without any help! Adrianna, once we broke the spinach up into smaller pieces, ate up a bunch too. Yay! :)

Winter Squash and Tofu Soup

It looked like cornmeal. Yummy cornmeal. And made me really want cornbread or popped corn or anything corn. But no corn involved. I did snack on the popped pumpkin squash seeds I made while roasting the squash...

I based the soup on a recipe in Robin Robertson's One-Dish Vegetarian Meals cookbook. I roasted my long pumpkin squash on Saturday, and needed to use up some of the goodness. A can't eat it all herself!

I also had a block of soft tofu in the fridge, taking up precious space needed for our $200 haul from Fairway... I'm a little afraid of tofu, so I tend to use it blended in things, made into brownies, etc. One day I will be brave and try some of those great sounding and looking tofu recipes out there, but until that day, beans are my staple and tofu will be incorporated into my dishes.

Here's Sunday's dinner

Winter Squash and Tofu Soup
Ingredients
1 1/2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
1 huge clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped (frozen) celery
1 large carrot, chopped
1 Yukon gold potato, chopped
1 1/4-1 1/2 cup roasted pumpkin squash
5 cups water
1 block soft tofu, crumbled
2 cups frozen brown rice
1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2-1 tsp coarse sea salt
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/2-1 tsp no-salt seasoning
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 cup (or more) nutritional yeast

What to do
Heat big LeCreuset, heat olive oil, saute onion for 5 minutes. Add garlic, saute 2-3 minutes more. (I forgot the garlic, and sauteed and added it after the soup was a soup; it still worked. :))
Add the vegetables, water, seasonings, nutritional yeast, and rice. Crumble the tofu into the pot. Cook for 30 minutes, until vegetables are soft.
When all the veggies are soft, puree the soup, with an immersion blender or by batches in a blender or food processor. (The immersion blender makes this step SUPER easy.) Taste and add more salt or nutritional yeast or no-salt seasoning, whatever you think it needs.
Enjoy!

It's a full meal in a bowl. You could serve it with fresh parsley, but I couldn't find mine. (Turns out it was still in a bag in the living room, having been forgotten the previous day! I crashed when putting the kiddies to bed after our Fairways trip, and D didn't remember that the parsley was hiding out in a bag with sweet potatoes and other non-refrigeratables.)

J and I ate our soup with extra sprinkles (aka nutritional yeast) and I added some sprinklings of coarse sea salt to mine. YUM.

Sweet Potato Tofu Scramble

Date: Some time last week, and the week before that too

Ingredients
1 block firm tofu, drained
1 yellow onion, chopped
3-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 T organic extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach
2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 medium red potato, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 tsp tumeric
2 medium tomatoes, cut into six or eight pieces or chopped

Directions

1. Heat cast iron pot. Add olive oil and heat. Add onion and garlic and saute for five minutes or until soft and yummy aroma rises up.
2. Add the potatoes, cover and let cook for approximately ten minutes.
3. Crumble the tofu into the pot.
   
4. Add the mushrooms and spinach, cover and let cook for approximately ten minutes.
   
5. Stir in the tumeric and mix well. Cook, uncovered for another minute or two.
   
6. Serve with pieces of tomato; alternately, chop the tomato and add to the pot after the tumeric.

Recipe Analysis
This recipe makes six servings. I haven't figured out the calories, etc. yet. It makes a good breakfast or snack.

Notes

1. Used up all my tumeric making this last week. Must buy more.
2. This works great as a stand alone meal, or in a wrap for on-the-go meals.
   
3. J loves my tofu scrambles. I use whatever veggies we have - I try to keep sweet potatoes and potatoes around, so I've been using those lately. And mushrooms, which she always picks at the store, but then we don't use for anything. (She likes to break them up if I give them to her raw, which, while fun for her, doesn't involve her eating them!)