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Tofu Sloppy Joes

After my first failed attempt at making vegetarian sloppy joes (inspired by my trip to Curlys) I knew I had to try again, if only to boost my cooking self-esteem a little bit.

This time, I went with tofu as a meat substitute, which texturally, worked really well but the spicing  was off. Big sigh. However, this dish was still delicious and I would recommend trying it.

Ingredients:

3 Servings

1 teaspoon canola oil

½ cup chopped onion

½ cup diced tomatoes

2/3 block of extra firm tofu

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (i had to look up the spelling)

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

½ teaspoon chili powder

½ teaspoon salt

Directions:

Drain tofu by cutting a slit into the package and sitting on the side of your sink.

Love this method!

In a pan, heat canola oil and add diced onion. Once onions are soft, add crumbled tofu. (Crumble using your hands)

Once it’s pretty heated through, add diced tomatoes.

While all of this is heating up in the pan, in a small bowl, mix tomato paste,  balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, chili powder, and salt.

This didn’t exactly taste like sloppy joe sauce but it’s great as a barbeque sauce! (note to self)

Add it to the tofu in the pan:

And there you have it… tofu sloppy joes that are delicious but don’t quite taste like sloppy joes. You can add it to a bun but I ate it just like this with a little melted cheese on top And I may also have added a healthy dose of Tabasco sauce. Yummmm.

Lemon Drop Cookies

I used a Cooking Light recipe to make these super easy and delicious lemon cookies but I altered the recipe from what I used, per usual, and actually omitted the lemon zest. (I shall explain later).

Ingredients:

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon lemon extract

1 large egg

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup plain Greek yogurt

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350˚.

Beat sugar and butter with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Add honey, extract, and egg. Beat until well incorporated.

In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt with a whisk.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture and once it’s thoroughly mixed, add yogurt.

Drop a teaspoon of batter (which is really fluffy!) onto baking sheet lined with Silpat (or sprayed with cooking spray) and bake for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned. The original recipe said to “drop” it on a baking sheet, so I naturally assumed they would kind of spread out and look a little more even, but not so. I don’t know if it’s because I used Greek yogurt and not regular yogurt, but they were pretty lumpy. They tasted great but left a little to be desired in terms of attractiveness

While cookies are in the oven, combined powdered sugar and juice in a small bowl and stir with a whisk.

Brush mixture onto cookies as soon as the cookies come out of the oven. Cool on wire rack.

So back to my lemon zest omission:

I decided not to add it to the recipe I posted because I’m not sure it’s really worth the time and effort it takes to grate the lemon zest. (I actually did add zest but was a little overzealous and added in quite a bit of rind, which is bitter, and it kind of threw off the cookie flavor a little.) The zest is supposed to be added into the batter and also to garnish the cookie. Aesthetically, it adds a lot but not necessarily flavor (I increased the measurement of lemon extract by ½ teaspoon). That said, if you don’t want to invest in lemon extract (it can be pretty pricey) go ahead and add the zest (double the measurement).

Wow, this is a really fascinating post.

However, I will say, my co-workers were big fans of the cookies. They’re light, fluffy and not-too-sweet. It’s perfect for warm weather because it’s pretty refreshing and doesn’t sit in your stomach like a rock. Apparently, according to Cooking Light, there’s about 90 calories per cookie.

They’re easy to make so I highly recommend making these! In fact, I think this and my thumbprints are the yummiest cookies I make…

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