Tofu Tuesdays #1

Oh yeah - another series!

I was inspired to start this tofu series after writing this post about greening up the kitchen and my eating. In that post, I mentioned an article in Bon Appetit called "50 Easy Ways to Eat Green", and idea #39 was to eat more tofu. I used to eat tofu somewhat regularly in university and every so often when I was on Weight Watchers. I kind of got over it though, and haven't had any in quite some time. I haven't really missed it. My main knock against it is that it's very processed, as are many tofu products, and my focus has been to eat more unprocessed, whole foods instead of stuff that bears no resemblance to it's natural form. But, as the article states, tofu is quite green, and takes less resources to produce than your average pound of beef (which I eat rarely anyway). Replacing 1lb of beef with 1lb of tofu per month apparently saves 20,000 gallons of water annually.

Fine. I can add some tofu to my diet.

Enter Canadian Living Magazine, February 2009 issue, and a section on a Chinese New Year menu, which included this recipe for Bok Choy, Mushroom, and Tofu Soup. It looked simple and delicious, and has about 59 calories per serving. Now, this soup is supposed to be part of a larger meal, so it's not too hearty on its own. In order to make it more filling and a little more...ah...fun, shall we say, I added some fresh chow mein noodles to it - because, let's face it, noodles make everything better, right? I also made my own stock once more, as seen here, only leaving out the lemon and adding ginger and some celery tops instead.

The soup turned out really well and I used medium tofu instead of firm. Big difference! Not rubbery or chewy and its softness took in the flavour of the soup much more than firm tofu would have. I'll have to remember this little tofu tip for the future.

Bon appetit!