Friday, January 17, 2014

Crawling out of the winter rut

Happy 2014! December and early January have been a whirlwind- crazy CRAZY long work weeks, holidays, a sinus infection and the flu have pretty much thrown my life completely out of whack. I'm ALMOST feeling 100% normal again and have finally resumed a somewhat regular schedule. It feels good.

I very recently promised K that I would cook (with his assistance, of course) a homemade dinner every single night for the next month to make up for the lackluster eating habits in our household these past few weeks. Naturally I regretted this promise the very next day and just wanted to eat leftover pizza for a dinner but never fear I'm sticking to it! (I'm also vowing to start using a real camera to photograph the process going forward because the iPhone is just cutting it).


See? Terrible photo. Especially given that I spent the first two years of college as a photography major. 

What's on the plate? Panko-crusted chili-cumin tofu topped with a hot pepper Greek yogurt. Served with a side of sauteed peppers, onions and sweet potatoeswith a dollop of salsa verde guacamole. Sounds fancy right? It was honestly a pretty simple undertaking. 

I marinated the tofu in soy sauce, agave nectar and a generous amount of cumin for almost an hour. I dipped the slices in egg and then in some chili powder and cumin seasoned panko breadcrumbs. I baked at 375 for 30 minutes, flipping the tofu half way through. While the tofu was baking I deeply carmelized an onion, then added in some cubed sweet potatoes and green peppers. I kept the heat turned up pretty high as I wanted just a little bit of charring. For the hot pepper Greek yogurt sauce I used half a container of 0% plain Chobani and added in chili powder, a dash of cayenne and a about 1T of hot sauce. The salsa verde guac was made from avocado, lime juice, salt and a some left over salsa verde from a taqueria (I know that's kind of cheating but it was the best salsa verde I've ever had and I couldn't let it go to waste). 

I plan to blog my way through the more creative nights of home cooking AND start sharing my training for the 20 Mile Drop! I officially registered and I'm already completely behind in my training/out of shape thanks to my two week battle with sickness, but I'm more than itching to get back on track (good thing too because April is fast approaching!).

I'm so happy to be back in blogland and hope that not all my readers have abandoned me :-)

4 comments:

  1. Wow that looks fantastic. I had no idea that hot pepper greek yogurt existed, but now must find some.

    Glad you're back!

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  2. I started reading your blog a little while ... I live in ohio too, about 2 hours away from columbus! I'm a "runner", but I use that loosely now since I'm out on injury. :(

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  3. Welcome back! I like seeing your dinner plates again, and I look forward to stealing your tofu recipe.

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  4. Welcome back! I like seeing your dinner plates again, and I look forward to stealing your tofu recipe.

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