Tofu Stir-Fry

Surprisingly enough, I made this 4 or 5 times before I was able to nab a picture of it. Why? Probably because I eat it so quickly.

So, the cool thing about stir fries is that they are really easy to make and you can use basically any protein (I dumpster tofu most often) and any vegetables that you have on hand or froze.  It's especially good for mixing frozen veggies with fresh, since it hides the freezer taste that sometimes accompanies veggies that have been in the freezer a little too long. It's a dumpster diver's paradise.  The stir fry below features marinated tofu, previously frozen green beans, orange bell pepper, corn, zucchini, and red onion.

TOFU (or meat) MARINADE

<u>Ingredients:</u>
- 1 block extra-firm tofu - best when previously frozen, thawed, and then pressed to get out all the liquid with paper towels (I'll cut it up first and then squeeze it to get out even more moisture before marinating it)
- 4 Tbsp soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp Mirin (find it in the Asian section of your supermarket - it's pretty much a dumpster chupacabra.  Don't hold your breath for this ingredient)
- 2 Tbsp Rice vinegar (same as the mirin)
- 1 Tbsp honey (vegans can use agave nectar or some other sweetener)
- 2 Tbsp grated ginger
- 2 tsp toasted sesame oil (I've dumpstered this once)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup onion, chopped
- 1 tsp sririacha sauce (or other hot chili sauce you have - more or less depending on how spicy you want it)
- Scallions (optional)

Thoroughly mix all these ingredients, then fold the tofu into it so it's liberally covered with everything.  Let it sit for a minimum of 20 minutes (time to cut your veggies) or overnight in the fridge.

ACTUAL STIR-FRY

<u>Ingredients:</u>
- 2 tbsp canola, safflower, or vegetable oil (I like using veggie oil the best)
- VEGGIES

Put oil in a pan or wok.
Get your pan or wok super-hot.
Put in your marinated tofu - you want a browning sear on the outside, but you don't want it to burn.  Stir fry for about 2 minutes, making sure each side gets browned (otherwise the tofu is in danger of falling apart).  Then, push it up to the side of the wok (if you're using a pan, just shift it to the outside edge). 
Add your veggies in the order of which take the longest to cook (carrots, mushrooms, peppers, bok choy stems, etc.) to whichever take the shortest (frozen pre-cooked veggies, corn, bok choy leaves, etc.). 
Once they cook up a bit, add the remainder of your marinade for extra flavor.  Keep cooking until the veggies are cooked, but still have a bit of crunch (taste testing is a great way to tell if they're ready).

You can eat a stir-fry straight (I do this), or make it last a little longer by putting it over rice or pasta.  It's a large initial investment of buying ingredients from the grocery store, but once you buy those basics (which are all pretty cheap), they last you MANY, MANY more meals, so it's worth it.

Items not dumpstered or donated: Ginger, garlic, sesame oil, mirin, rice vinegar, vegetable oil

Summer Salads - Sesame Tomato and Citrus Carrot

Now that it's summer, expect more produce in the dumpster (yay)! Also, expect more recipes using that produce (yay)!


SESAME TOMATO SALAD

So, the first time I made this, I made it as a tomato and cucumber salad paired with some similarly marinated tuna steaks, but then I ran out of cucumber and just used tomatoes for a quick snack before work. It still tasted awesome; it was crisp and cool in this suffocating summer heat. Honestly, this recipe is all about the dressing. It doesn't really matter what you put the dressing on, because it will automatically taste delicious. I just have 8 million cherry tomatoes to use right now before they go bad, and this makes me eat them faster than Justin Bieber can run away from a flashmob of tweens.

Ingredients:

These amounts are good for about 1-2 small side servings.

- Cherry tomatoes, halved (add heirlooms if you have them for color and extra flavor like I did) (you can also use regular sized tomatoes if you want)
- Cucumber/whatever (optional) - if you skin the cucumber, you can get fancy and use the shredded bits to garnish the top or do one sliver to make a bowl corral thing for your salad...
- Ginger (about the size of a garlic clove)
- Garlic (0.5-1 clove per serving of tomatoes)
- 1.5 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp white vinegar or rice vinegar
- Toasted sesame seeds
- 2 tsp soy sauce

Shred your ginger onto the tomatoes.
Mince garlic, toss that in.
Pour all the other stuff on top (tweak the ratios if you want more bite).
Serve it.

BOOM. Easy.

This is very similar to the sauce I used with my Bok Choy & Green Beans - the salad dressing is a lighter, more refreshing version (due to the vinegar). However, you could totally substitute raw green beans as your salad material and go to town if you needed to use them up. If I were to use green beans, I'd probably julienne them first so they would absorb more of the juicy stuff. I made this dressing to put on a mostly dumpstered salad at my friends' house and they LOVED it, so I'm pretty sure I'm not insane that this stuff is the nomz.




CITRUS CARROT SALAD

Ingredients:
- Carrots
- Lime juice (lemon can be substituted, but it doesn't taste as good)
- Salt & Pepper to taste. Use fresh cilantro if you're feeling sassy.

Shred or julienne carrots (the thinner the better).
Thoroughly cover in lime juice.
Add salt/pepper/cilantro/whatever to taste (optional - I usually won't add anything).

DONE.

Super easy and refreshing. Plus, you needed ZERO other materials besides those you dumpstered! Amazing!

Items not dumpstered or donated: garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, white vinegar, salt & pepper

Bok Choy & Green Beans

On my last dumpstering voyage, I noticed a lone package of bok choy in a bag of produce. I'd eaten bok choy a few times, but had never cooked it before, so I got excited to try. It looked pretty sad when I dumpstered it, so I knew I had to cook it in the next 24 hours if I was going to get any use out of it.

Bok choy is a pretty versatile product mostly used in Asian cuisine - you can boil it, steam it, stir fry it, or even deep fry it. I had also dumpstered 5 bags of green beans on the same trip (read: more than humanly possible to eat without choosing to eat them often), so I decided to make a stir fry out of both and kill two birds with one stone. I normally cook green beans a totally different way and am unaccustomed to stir frying, so it seemed like a good choice to learn with.

BOK CHOY & GREEN BEANS

Ingredients:

- 2.5 heads bok choy, washed and separated (I started with 3 heads, but had to sacrifice the brown stalks and wilted leaves)
- 1 bag of green beans (approx. 5 handfuls)
- 2 cloves garlic
- Equivalent size of 2 cloves ginger
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 cup water or rice wine vinegar
- 4 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- Sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds
- Salt, ginger powder, & garlic powder to taste (powders can also be substituted for fresh ingredients if you don't have them on hand)

So, you can really break the dish down into making just bok choy, just green beans, or mixing the two. It doesn't matter if you start with the bok choy or the green beans.

First, we have the bok choy:

Before you start: separating the bok choy involves cutting off the very bottom, taking off the leaves, but then cutting the white stalk from the leafy part on the bigger leaves, since they have separate cooking times (the leaves are about 1-2 min. less). Leave the last little nugget in the middle intact.

Put some cooking oil (I used olive) in the bottom of a wok or pan, heat at medium.
Throw in minced garlic, and shred your skinned ginger into the pan using a lemon zester or cheese grater.
Wait for the garlic and ginger to sizzle.
Next, add the bok choy and turn vigorously for about 30 seconds until the oily mixture coats it.
Pour in water or vinegar, turn heat to high, and steam for 2 minutes.
Drizzle with soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, salt, and garlic/ginger powder to taste.

Put this aside.

Using the same oil, turn the heat down to medium-high, add a little more olive oil/sesame oil/soy sauce/salt/sesame seeds to your pan. Throw in your green beans. Cover them to make them cook a bit faster, but not so much that they lose their crunch!

Here are the green beans by themselves:

Now that you have both components, toss them together and serve! This was SO easy and SO delicious. I'm now addicted to bok choy, and hope to dumpster it again soon.

As an afterthought, some sugar could have been used here and there to change up the dish's flavor if I make it again, since the bok choy stalks are a little bitter. However, since green beans are so sweet, I didn't really need it.

The cooking time for this is only about 7-15 min and yields 2 entree-sized portions (maybe 4 side portions).

After making this dish, I was so pleased with the outcome that I texted a friend and told him I had just made some bok choy my bitch. He didn't really understand, but I'll just make the dish for him some other time so he gets it...

Items not donated or dumpstered: toasted sesame seeds, olive oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger