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Friday, March 10, 2017

Pizza. It's what's for dinner...every single night until we die!!!

If it were up to my kids, they would seriously eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They love anything pizza related too, pizza rolls, pizza pockets, pizza wheels, those pizza on a bagel thingies, etc. I'm just waiting for a cereal company to finally make their dreams come true and release a pizza flavored cereal, because I have no doubt my kids would eat that too.  I know exactly where they get their undying love and adoration for pizza from too....their dear old dad.

When I first started dating my husband, he was a bachelor living in his own man cave, otherwise known as a one bedroom apartment. The inside of his refrigerator was completely barren minus some ketchup and soy sauce packets from various fast food places and a twelve pack of Mountain Dew. He ordered pepperoni pizza for dinner pretty much every single night of the week. In fact the place he ordered it from, immediately recognized his number on the caller ID, so they knew his order before he even had to say hello.

I like pizza too, but I don't wish to eat it for every single meal, especially as I get older. I swear if I even look twice at a slice of veggie or cheese pizza (really the only two kinds of pizza I can consume since I'm a vegetarian), I gain about ten pounds, pretty much all around my waistline. It may be warm, cheesy, saucy and delicious, but it's best when eaten once a week (twice tops). However, tell that to my dear, sweet, children, as they literally don't want to eat anything else.

Last night I attempted to cook some spinach and cheese ravioli from Costco. You would've thought those little pockets of pasta were stuffed full of rat poison judging from their expressions. They ate one or two little bites of pasta (they literally chewed the outside ring of the ravioli so they didn't have to touch any filling) and then ate a thousand pieces of french bread with butter.

I try very hard to cook them a variety of meals.  For example, I can cook a mean vegetarian crock pot chili but that has *gasp* beans in it so they carefully lick the sauce off the spoon so that they don't accidentally swallow a bean because that would be apparently equal their sudden and immediate demise and then they eat all of the cheese off the top of the chili. Then of course after they get told "No you can't add more cheese on top of your chili until you actually eat some of the chili" they dump their bowls into the sink and then complain about being hungry. This is precisely why I don't kill myself cooking complicated meals because I'm probably the only one who would eat them, along with our dog Olive, who eats absolutely everything with Seanie Mac's poopy diapers being her all time favorite meal.

Our typical meal rotation consists of things like vegetarian hot dogs, veggie burgers, spaghetti, teriyaki ChikN and rice (notice I said ChikN not chicken as it's not really chicken because we don't eat meat...which by the way, things were absolutely no different back when we did eat meat. They still hated everything I cooked), baked macaroni and cheese, tacos, loaded baked potatoes, etc. These are things that I can at least get them to partially eat, but they still would much rather have pizza if given a choice. I on the other hand am sick to death of all of these things. I've tried cooking other meals in the past like lasagna, enchiladas, tofu stir fry, curry and rice, various homemade soups, casseroles, etc, and the majority of the meals ended up going to waste. It's frustrating because people always say, "They will eventually get hungry and eat what's on their plate if you don't give them a choice" but these people obviously haven't met my stubborn little angels. Getting them to do something they don't want is like trying to catch a cat in a carrier to take to a veterinary appointment. Think of the little girl in the Mommy Dearest movie who refused to eat her bloody raw steak (okay so I can't say that I really blame her on that one), but it's pretty much an FBI style standoff every single time, especially with Peanut. This kid could seriously sit at the table for two solid days to avoid eating something that he views as yucky or disgusting (which again is pretty much anything besides pizza or peanut butter and jelly). 

All I can hope is that their palates mature and their minds open up a little as they get older, and that maybe eventually, someday I'll actually be able to feed them a vegetable without them barfing it back up on their plates (yes, this actually happened once with our oldest). I'm not holding my breath though, as I really don't foresee this happening anytime soon. As for what we're eating for dinner tonight? Yep, you guessed it. Pizza.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

The most amazing tofu tacos you've probably never had

I know what you're thinking...tofu? BARF!!! Is this chick for real? But before you click out of this post and take me off of your blogroll forever, please just hear me out. These tofu tacos are so ridiculously good you'll want to slap your husband (okay, so you'll want to slap him anyways, for reasons other than tofu tacos, but this gives you a valid reason).

It's extremely unusual for me to post recipes on my blog because as you all know, I suck at all things domestic, but on the rare occasion when I do actually hit one out of the park, I figure it's only fair that I share my success and wisdom with others. Sure, there may be some of you out there who've achieved successful careers, nice homes, fancy cars, vacation condos on tropical islands that I can't even pronounce, but I can cook tofu. We all have our special talents and do the best with what we are given. 

I'll admit that a block of tofu straight out of the package looks pretty unappetizing (AKA pretty damn gross). It kinda reminds me of a giant Magic Clear Eraser but it's wet, slimy and crumbles like blue cheese when you touch it. I haven't had a chance to clean my tub with it yet to see if it has the same cleaning capabilities as a MCE, but I'll get back to you on that one later. 

My husband and I discovered the awesomeness that is tofu tacos at this amazing, trendy restaurant in Bend (which will remain nameless because I would die of embarrassment if they saw my photos which are pitiful compared to their artistic culinary masterpieces). We loved these silly little tofu tacos so much that we were going daily for awhile. Not only did we start to feel a little stalkerish about going to the same restaurant and ordering the same food item every single day, but dining out really starts to add up. We needed to figure out a way to make them ourselves so we could save some money and completely pig out on them without judgment (e.g. someone taking secret cell phone photos of us stuffing our pie holes with tacos) in the privacy of our own home. 

Although we have no idea what the recipe or ingredients are in the tofu tacos at our favorite restaurant (my husband first suggested that we should ask them for their recipe but I was like, "Um, babe, we eat here everyday. Do you really think they're going to just hand us their super top secret recipe so we can copy it and stop spending money at their restaurant? Probably not!"), so we decided to try our own knock off tofu tacos.  Although they don't look anywhere near as pretty as their tacos, the knock offs turned out incredible and now my husband and I are literally gorging ourselves right into the next pant size.

Ingredients you will need for the tacos:
white corn tortillas
olive oil 
tofu (I bought two firm blocks because I wanted leftovers)
cajun seasoning (I use Weber N'Orleans Cajun Seasoning)
lime juice
Salad/spinach greens or cabbage or both for the topping (I like both but my hubby hates cabbage so I leave it off)
cilantro for the topping
jalapeno peppers for the topping (optional)

Ingredients you will need for the spicy chipotle sauce: 
1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce  (you wont use an entire can unless you want to set your mouth on fire, which I did the first time I made this sauce....lesson learned)
3/4 to 1 cup of mayo (didn't measure out very accurately..told ya I sucked at cooking)
1/2 cup of sour cream (feel free add more if you want)
1/4 tsp of minced garlic (I may have added a couple of these as I love garlic)
lime juice to taste
lemon juice to taste

Directions for the tofu tacos:
*Drain the tofu, blot well with paper towels, cut blocks in half width wise into two equal pieces and then cut into smaller cubes
*Add cajun seasoning into a plastic bag or container. Squirt tofu squares with some lime juice. Shake cajun seasoning onto tofu until it's well coated
*Cook tofu on a skillet over medium heat with a little olive oil until it starts to turn slightly crispy
*Warm corn tortillas on a frying pan with a small amount of oil and heat on both sides
*Cut up cilantro, salad greens/spinach, cabbage, and jalapenos and set aside

Directions for the spicy chipotle sauce:
Add mayo, sour cream, minced garlic, 1/2 can of adobo peppers, and a few squirts of lemon and lime juice. Blend in blender (I use my NutriBullet) until smooth. I will admit, I adjusted amounts until it tasted good to me (adding more lemon or lime for example) so there is no right or wrong way to make this sauce. I know, I'm super duper helpful.

Once you warm the corn tortillas on the skillet (a couple of min on each side usually) with a little oil, it's time to arrange your tacos. There is no exact science to this process. I put about 4-5 cubes of tofu in each taco, add some salad greens, cilantro and the spicy chipotle sauce on top. My final step is to squirt some additional lime juice on top (I love lime juice if you haven't noticed). You can also add some freshly sliced up jalapenos on top, but I find these tacos are spicy and hot enough without them so do what you wish but definitely have some water nearby because these tacos have quite the kick.

I know, I know, you're super jealous of my mad food photography skills, along with my fancy puke green fine china--courtesy of Walmart
I promise you that these babies taste so much better than they look. And I should probably mention that I added WAY more spicy chipotle sauce than a normal person would (hence the reason why my mouth was on fire). You probably wont want to start with this much sauce and had I not dumped a crapton of sauce all over the tacos, you actually would've been able to see what they looked like underneath (sorry). I told you there's a very good reason why I don't blog about cooking. I promise these tacos are good, and before you know it, you'll be buying the large boxes of tofu at Costco.