The EASIEST Burgers Ever!

Ever tried Portobello Mushroom burgers? They're savory, a little sweet, juicy and delicious. So what if they're meatless burgers?! It's easy to dress them up with sauteed onions and garlic, avocado and tomatoes.

All you need to do to make these is less than 1/2 hour, a grill pan (remember the one from a couple previous posts?) or barbeque, and shallow bowls or plates with an edge that curve up.

Ingredients:

• Large Portobello Mushroom Caps (one for each person)
• 1/4 cup Low Sodium Soy Sauce for each mushroom
• 1 Tbsp honey for each mushroom
• 1 Tbsp water for each mushroom
• (optional) 1 tsp minced ginger for each mushroom
• (optional) 1 tsp chopped garlic for each mushroom

You can marinate the mushrooms in separate bowls or one large baking dish or similar container.
Mix soy sauce, honey, water, ginger and garlic together in the separate bowls or in the one container. Mix thoroughly so that honey is completely absorbed. Place clean, washed mushroom caps into the mixture. Coat on both sides. Leave on one side in marinade for 10 minutes. Flip and leave in mixture another 10 minutes. 7 minutes from now, heat up your grill or grill pan (on med-low). If using a charcoal grill, allot for the amount of time it takes coals to get hot.

Now you're ready to grill up your portobello burgers. Place each over direct heat on the grill or grill pan. Cook for 5-6 mins on the first side. Flip and cook another 3 minutes on the second side.

 Add fresh tomatoes, grilled onions, avocado, cucumbers, pickles or any other garnish you like...or just leave the mushrooms as they are. They will be juicy so watch your clothes!



Lastly, don't forget the whole wheat hamburger buns! Buying hamburger buns and other bread products evokes one of my biggest pet peeves when grocery shopping. If your goal is to buy completely whole wheat bread products, PLEASE be wary when perusing the baked goods section at the store.
Manufacturers get away with a lot of sneaky labeling in this category so turn the package over and read the list of ingredients.

They can print "Whole Wheat" on their packaging even if the product only contains a small amount of the natural wheat. They also can say that if they're using enriched whole wheat, where some of the wheat has been stripped out so they can replace it with their own modifiers instead. Basically it's taste engineering. I've literally been to grocery stores where there are no suitable whole wheat breads containing 100% whole wheat. You might also want to watch out for products containing high fructose corn syrup - a cheap and highly processed sweetner food makers use instead of sugar. Sugar in moderation is not that bad for you and doesn't contain weird chemicals that do who knows what to you.

Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat Buns

This is the ONLY brand I've found that uses 100% Whole Wheat and uses no high fructose corn syrup. It's sold at a very reasonable price, about $2.50 per pkg at a store called Winco Foods.

Grilled Flatbread Pizza

If you like pizza, this is a sure bet. As far as pizza goes, it's healthy as it uses a flatbread, whole wheat crust, lots of veggies, not an overwhelming amount of cheese and no oil. This is nothing like pizza from a delivery restaurant. This pizza is light, crispy and may leave you wanting more. Make two if you and the people you're sharing it with are really hungry!

Here's a picture of all the ingredients I used for the flatbread pizza. 

• Flat, whole wheat lavash bread - got these from Trader Joe's. They come in a pkg of 6 for about $2.49
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese - not from a can - grated
• 1/4 cup Feta cheese - regular or flavored is fine
• Veggies - I used green bell pepper, garlic, yellow onion, zuchinni, mushrooms and tomatoes. Slice all of them. 
• 5 oz. Marinara sauce - Fresh & Easy has some in jars for $1.79 that do not have any chemicals or preservatives 

I used one flatbread for two people. First, lay your flatbread on your grilling pan or surface. It's much easier than having to transport the flatbread with all your pizza ingredients later.

 Spread marinara sauce on the flatbread very sparingly, leaving about a 1/4" around the edges for a crust. Too much sauce will make the flatbread soggy and you won't get a nice, crisp crust. (see photo on the left) Then evenly sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the sauce.

Flatbread Pizza Before Going Under Grill

Sprinkle on the chopped garlic. Place slices of onion, bell pepper, zuchinni, mushrooms and lastly tomatoes. Finally, sprinke on the feta cheese.





Grill for about 5 to 6 mins at medium, then check the bottom of the crust. It should not be darkening too quickly. Grill for about 2 more minutes. To give the veggies on top of the pizza a nice, grilled look, put grill pan under the broiler for no more than 2 minutes.

Flatbread Pizza Just Off the Grill

These slices don't stay on the plate very long!

Use a big spatula to remove the pizza from the grill pan. If you have fresh basil, wash about 10 leaves, rip them up and spread the pieces over the cooked pizza. Slice, serve and enjoy!

Summer Nectarines with Crispy Oatmeal Crumble

Look no further for a satisfying summer dessert, or maybe just a sweet snack. Only 4 ingredients!
Stone fruits - nectarines, peaches, plums, etc. are in season and they're delicious when fully ripe.
Make this easy and healthy dessert in LESS than 15 minutes. Mmmmm!

I picked up a bag of nectarines - 6 of them - at Fresh & Easy for 98-cents. Score! They weren't quite soft enough to eat so they were left on the counter and in 2 days they were ready. I made this for 2 people. You can increase the amounts of ingredients (all 4 of them) depending on how many you're serving.

Here's what you'll need: 

• 4 ripe nectarines (or peaches if you prefer. No need to peel them)
• 1/2 cup rolled oats (Quaker oatmeal or similar)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp. olive oil

So to make this dessert, heat your oven (or toaster oven with a door) to 400-degrees F. Cut nectarines into slices, discarding the pits. Line the bottom of an ovenproof dish with the fruit. Mix thoroughly the oats, brown sugar and olive oil in a bowl. Sprinkle the mixture over the nectarine slices and drizzle a few drops of water over the mixture.

Bake at 400-degrees for 10 minutes, or until the oats/sugar mixture starts to turn dark brown.

If you really want to treat yourself, you could serve it with some vanilla ice cream (Haagen Dasz makes a good one called 'Five' - only five ingredients, no chemicals) or frozen yogurt.

Super Easy (and Cheap) Fish Stew

When searching the fridge and pantry for something with a little protein I could put with the leftovers of the Garden Risotto (see previous post), I decided to experiment. My fish stew turned out awesome!
It's quick (under 30 mins), flavorful and very inexpensive to make.

Here's what I did. Recreate it and you and your family will be happy.

• 1 onion - chopped small
• 3 cloves garlic - minced
• 1/2 head green cabbage - chopped
• 1 zucchini - chopped small
• 3 roma tomatoes - chopped
• 1/2 cup dry white wine - seperated into 1/4 cups
• 1/2 lb. white fish (up to you which kind - can be frozen but make sure to thaw it before adding to pan)

Start with a large frying pan with high edges. Heat about a teaspoon of olive oil. Add in whatever vegetables you have lying around. I used a chopped onion, a few cloved of chopped garlic, chopped cabbage, a few chopped roma tomatoes and some zucchini. Sautee all the vegetables under slightly tender. Then put in about 1/4 cup dry white wine and 1/2 cup vegetable broth. Simmer this for about 5 to 7 minutes. Add in about 1/2 lb. of whatever white fish (I used frozen white fish you can get at the grocery store for about $7 for 10 lbs. Just make sure it's thawed before adding it to the pan.)
Cook on med-high heat for about 5 minutes. The fish will fall apart in the pan as you stir it. Add salt and pepper to taste. Another great flavor addition is Old Bay seasoning. I used about 1 Tbsp. You can also add about 1 tsp. corn starch completely dissolved in an additional 1/4 cup of white wine, then added to the fish mixture to thicken the sauce. Continue stirring until you reach the desired thickness.

Served this with Garden Risotto on the side. Yum!

Garden Risotto

If you can cook rice, you can make this extremely flavorful risotto dish. It can be made as a main or side dish and one of the great things is that you can use virtually any vegetables you have in your fridge in it. It's all vegetarian/vegan except for the parmesan cheese...which you don't have to use, though the cheese does give the risotto a lovely, slightly creamier texture.

 (Adding finishing touches to Risotto - putting Parmesan cheese in pan.)

I found the recipe on FoodNetwork.com from Ellie Krieger's show. If you haven't seen it, she does a lot of healthier dishes that are often vegetarian. I made the Garden Risotto as a co-main dish alongside slices of marinated, baked tofu. For the tofu, get a 14oz block at the grocery store, cut into 1/2" slices and drain from the pkg. Then soak the remainder of the moisture out of the tofu slices with a thin dishcloth.


My marinade was made up of:

• 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
• 4 cloves minced garlic 
• 10 leaves of minced fresh basil

Mix all ingredients together in a shallow bowl or cassarole dish and put tofu slices in there for about 10 mins on each side.

Click here for the Garden Risotto recipe. It takes about 10 or 15 mins longer than the recipe on Food Network indicates, though is well worth the wait. It also makes a good 6 servings so it's great if you want to make the full amount and then have leftovers for side dishes for the family the next day.

*I didn't have spinach like the recipe called for so substituted chopped zucchini and chopped green bell pepper, along with the peas.

Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Roasted Corn

While recently on holiday in Hawaii, I was talking with guy from Seattle at the vacation condo's barbeque area. We talked about what food we were making. He opened the lid to his BBQ and revealed slices of Molokai (Hawaiian) sweet potatoes. Hmmm. I didn't have sweet potatoes but swore to myself I'd try grilling them when I got back to the mainland. In a previous post, I sung the prasies of my Mario Batali grilling pan. It's perfect for grilling most things, including sweet potatoes.
This is so easy to prepare and paired with roasted corn and vegetarian baked beans, the meal becomes very hearty with a good amount of protein.

Start with one medium sweet potato for each person. Wash and scrub your sweet potatoes really well before cooking. Potatoes can harbor bacteria since they come straight from the ground.

Place sweet potatoes in the microwave for about 5 minutes, turning two times during this process. This will soften the potatoes up a bit, but not cook them all the way through. After the 5 minutes, heat up your grill pan. Take the sweet potatoes out of the microwave, slice them into 1/2" round slices and place on the grill. You can drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the potatoes as they're in the pan. Cook them on med-high heat for about 6 minutes on the first side. Flip them and cook for another 3 minutes. Flip again if you want to get really distinct grill marks.

For corn:
Keep your corn in the husks and place the ears in a bowl of water for at least 30 mins before cooking. Switch on your oven's broiler and place the corn close to the flame. Turn the corn every 4 minutes so that the husks are brownish on all sides. The corn usually takes about 15 minutes, depending on how close you have the corn to the broiler flame.

Here's the finished product. Enjoy!

Keema

Keema is an Indian vegetarian dish that's really tasty with the right combination of curry powder and cumin. I've been using cumin a lot lately and it's quickly becoming one of my favorite spices because of its unique aroma and intense flavor. The recipe comes from allrecipes.com. Play around with the amounts of curry powder and cumin because the amount the recipe calls for was not enough to make it taste right, or even good. I also added about 1/2 tsp of salt and about 1/4 cup of water because the tofu mixture dries in the pan.

Also, use a whole pkg of tofu.

If you're serving it with rice, put the rice on to cook first, and then prepare the Keema. By the time the Keema is done, the rice should be done, too. All Recipes.com Keema recipe - click here


So the finished product, well, it's not the prettiest of dishes, though believe me, it is very tasty. You taste the curry, the cumin and all the vegetables add to the ethnic flavor. One of the best parts of this dish, it's quick and can be made in less than 1/2 hour. 

Healthy Oatmeal Cookies

 

Oatmeal Cookies! (psst, they're healthy)  

Make oatmeal cookies that are actually pretty good for you, that will give you energy and that have very little fat, no butter and no oil. They're very tasty and naturally sweet.   

I found this recipe on recipezaar.com. They credit foodnetwork.com for the tasty cookies. There's another I've made from wholegraingourmet.com. The one below makes the cookies taste better, however...as in a little sweeter. This recipe also works fine if you double everything to make more cookies. Makes about 25 small cookies (depending on how big you spoon the dough onto the baking sheet).

Ingredients  

• 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature (replace with 3 Tbsp. applesauce for healthy version)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 egg 
• 1 tablespoon water 
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (all-purpose works, too) 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 &  1/2 cups rolled oats(aka oatmeal) 
• chopped dates (optional) or fig (optional) or  raisins (optional) or currant (optional) or chocolates chips (optional) or chopped nuts, etc (optional)        
 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray (just for convenience :]) 
Using a mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the butter (or applesauce), brown sugar, honey, egg and water thoroughly.  Sift together the dry ingredients then stir in the oats. 

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix. Add any additional ingredients you've chosen. 
Drop heaping teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. 

 Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy!

Pan Seared Salmon with Lime Ginger Butter Sauce

"Absolutely heavenly!" That's what my husband said about this dish. The recipe and a photo appeared in the Inland Empire magazine May 2010 issue. I tried it and it's wonderful! I picked up some fresh, wild caught Sockeye Salmon from the local grocery store and followed the directions exactly. We served it with grilled onions and asparagus cooked in the Mario Batali Grill Pan (see earlier blog post) and rice. A pretty healthy dinner if I do say so myself.

 Strawberries are in season so I picked some up and used them as a garnish. Do yourself a favor and make this! Hint: don't overcook the salmon in the oven, otherwise it will turn out too dry and will have trouble absorbing the flavor of the lime butter. You only need 7 things for the salmon dish so get going!




Ingredients:

• 4 teaspoons butter, softened, at room temp
• 3 teaspoons fresh lime juice, warmed slightly 
• 1 teaspoon chopped parsley
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 4 salmon filets (4 oz each)
• Salt & fresh ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 500-degrees. (yes, 500!) In a small bowl, mix the butter, lime juice, ginger and parsley. Set aside. In a large, ovenproof skillet, add the olive oil and spread by turning pan to make a light film. Lightly sprinkle salt and pepper on salmon. When oil just starts to smoke, add salmon, skin side up, and cook about 1 minute or until nicely browned. Turn the fish over and cover the skillet, put in oven. Cook for 3 to 4 mins or until desired doneness. Use a thick potholder to remove skillet from oven. Press top of fish. If it's firm, it's done.
Serve immediately with ginger lime butter on top and extra fresh lime juice if you like. Makes 4 servings.

Ooh! Spice Market Sweet Potato & Lentil Packets

What a beautiful and colorful, completely vegetarian dinner this turned out to be. It's full of flavor and filling that you may never miss the fact this dish has no meat. With a good amount of protien, it is low in fat and low in calories. If you want to serve it with something more, try brown rice with just a splash of soy sauce.

This recipe comes from May/June 2010 issue of Vegetarian Times. Other than cutting up the vegetables and cooking the lentils, this only takes about 20-25 minutes cooking time. Each person gets his or her own packet and the nice part, the packets and the contents stay hot for a long time.

First, preheat the oven to 400-degrees F. Ok, here comes the recipe:
2 cups finely diced sweet potato (this is one large sweet potato. You can also use a yam for extra sweetness)
1 large red bell pepper, diced (1 & 1/2 cups)
1 cup fresh green beans, thinly sliced (we used zuchini instead of green beans and it was good)
1/4 cup golden raisins (used regular raisins and was still good sweetness)
2 Tbs. hot sesame oil
1 cup vegetable broth
2 Tbs. minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. curry powder (don't forget this. Adds a lot to the flavor of the whole dish!)
1 & 1/2 cups cooked lentils or 1 - 15oz. can lentils, rinsed and drained
4 Tbs. prepared mango chutney, optional (we didn't use this and it was fine. Could use fresh mango to add to sweetness)

Place 4 16-inch lengths of foil on work surface. Fold foil in half from short side. Unfold. Shape corners and edges of one half in to semicircle "bowl" with 1/2" sides. Coat insides of foil with cooking spray. You can also use a "Misto" sprayer to spritz olive oil instead of chemical cooking spray.
Combine sweet potato, bell pepper, green beans and raisins in medium bowl. Add oil and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper if you'd like.

Whisk together broth, ginger, garlic and curry powder in small bowl.

Divide sweet potato mixture among the packets. Top with 1/3 cup lentils each. Pour 1/4 of the broth mixture over the lentils in each packet and season with salt and pepper. Fold the other half of the foil over the ingredients and crimp edges in overlapping folds until packets are sealed.

Transfer packets to baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes. 30 if you're at sea level and you don't want the sweet potatoes to be on the crunchy side.

Transfer the packets to plates and let each person open the packets...carefully. Escaping air will be hot and steamy. Here's where you can top with the mango chutney if you want. Enjoy!

Here's the finished product. It's tasty and very hearty.

Corn & Black Bean Salad with Lime/Basil Dressing

Ooohh.... this is different, unique, and of course, good... as in, Yum! The cumin in the vinaigrette gives this dish wonderful kick. It's hearty enough to stand on its own as a satisfying main dish.
This recipe came from the kitchens of Food Network and I, and my husband, thank them for that. We've made this dish twice. The 2nd time, we forgot to buy a red bell pepper.
My advice, do not forget the red bell pepper. While it's okay without out and still very tasty, the red bell pepper imparts the essence of sweetness needed to even everything out. It does not quite get there with the mango. Really!

This recipe is very easy and pretty quick to make - especially if you use frozen corn. It does taste better using fresh corn. Frozen has too much water content but will work in a pinch. Romaine lettuce leaves work as garnish and as non-carb wraps for the bean mixture.
Courtesy Food Network:Everyday Italian - Corn & Black Bean Salad w/Basil Lime Dressing

My husband and I have eaten all vegetarian dinners this week. ie. No Fish! Everything has tasted fantastic. Look for more vegetarian recipes soon!

Shrimp & Tomatoes in Wine Sauce in 15 Minutes? Yep!

So this is the shrimp and tomato mixture simmering in the pan. This dish is so easy and amazingly tasty... and, it's very inexpensive to make. Cool, huh!

So, start by boiling a pot of water to cook the noodles. I used linguini and it seems like a thicker pasta will work better (instead of angel hair or something like that). Cook pasta until al dente. Typically 2-3 oz. pasta per person is a filling portion.

1 yellow onion (chopped)
4-5 cloves of (minced)
4 or 5 roma tomatoes (cut in chunks and seeds scooped out)
1/2 cup dry white wine + 1/2 cup addt'l to mix with corn starch
1 cup frozen peas
1 tsp corn starch 
salt & pepper to taste
25-30 frozen or fresh rock shrimp or larger shrimp (peeled and deveined)

While pasta is boiling, heat a tsp of olive oil (or use your Misto spritzer - see previous blog post) in a large saute pan. When pan and oil are hot, drop in the onions. Cook them for about 3 minutes...onions will 'sweat.' Then put in tomatoes, peas, garlic and sautee for a few more minutes. (It's o.k. that the peas are frozen.) Tomatoes will start to break down and peas will cook. Add shrimp then the wine.
Let everything sautee for about 4 mins. Mix the addt'l 1/2 cup of wine and the tsp of cornstarch together in seperate bowl or cup. Add this in increments to the sautee pan and keep stirring. Mixture will get slightly thicker. Once it's all heated through, it's ready to serve.
oh, yeah... don't forget to drain the pasta. Serve the shrimp/tomato/wine mixture over the pasta and enjoy.
Maybe pour you and your dinner parter a glass of the wine you used for cooking, if it's something you like drinking, too.

Things I Love!

So here are a few 'tools of the trade'...not that I'm really in the cooking trade by profession... but these things always make cooking so much better, easier, and for some reason they make stuff taste better!

If you like to cook and come across these items, seriously consider them.

• Cast Iron Grilling Pan - a friend of mine used a Mario Batali cast iron grilling pan to make zuchini and butternut squash. Yes, I know. Sounds...earthy, right? But, it was delicious because the squash was put into risotto and had a ton of flavor. I've prepared zuchini, portabello mushrooms, salmon and a few other items in the pan and they turned out fantastically. I found our grilling pan at Crate & Barrel on sale! There are plenty of others out there if you don't feel like making Chef Mario any richer. 
• Good Set of Knives - This was one of the things that came into the kitchen courtesy of my husband. Instead of the random knives accumulated over the years and using them for everything, a set of knives include steak knives. Good knives make chopping so much faster and while you need to be careful while handling them, they're actually less likely to slip and cut you. 
• Olive Oil Spritzer - a coworker got me this for Christmas and it's one of the most used things in the kitchen. Now instead of spraying a chemical cooking spray in the pan before sauteing, you just spray a quick spritz of olive oil. I think it's about $10...hey, it was a gift! 

So I'll add more great tools of the trade in the posts to come. Hope these help you!

Want A Tasty Appetizer? Bet on Bruschetta

Bruschetta has different meanings to different people so what we're talking about here is the basil, garlic, tomato and olive oil mixture + the crostini bread slices you typically get with that mixture.
Getting the right balance of all the ingredients is tough. This is one instance where it definitely does help to play with your food. For the Bruschetta mixture you see in the photo, I used:

• About 20 large basil leaves 
• 4 medium sized cloves of garlic
• 4 large roma tomatoes (cut in 1/2 and scoop out the center)
• Tbsp of olive oil
• pinch of sea salt

Throw all these into a food processor and give it about 5 pulses. You can choose to keep it more chunky or pulverize it - whatever works for you. Oh, pick up a loaf of thin French bread at the store cut it into thin slices and toast the slices. Spoon the Bruschetta mixture onto the toasts and mmmmmmm!!!

This stuff does not last long in my house. You've probably guessed this is a low fat appetizer. True. And it's packed with flavor. Going to make it next time guests come over for sure!

The Husband Wanted Waffles

What do you do when you don't have the instant pancake/waffle mix at home (which is not so good for you anyway)? You improvise and luckily, this recipe I found on 'Serious Cooks' does the trick.
As long as you have the most basic of basic baking ingredients, you can make these healthy waffles. Guess what!? They taste good. Your family will never know that there's no butter, no buttermilk, very little oil and very few eggs. Do you have flour? check. Do you have milk or soymilk? Check! Just one egg? No prob.

Dust off that waffle maker from the cupboard. Plug it in, brush a little olive oil on it and follow the recipe in this link. You can also double it or cut it in half and it still works great! Bananas, strawberries or other fresh fruit to put on top make them even better.

Healthy Waffle Recipe

Different Take on My Dad's Salmon w/Onions, Tomatoes & Garlic

Dinner tonight = good. Not as flavorful as last night, though I will try this again and add more spices and a little more salt. Not much, though! Salt isn't good for you in large amounts. See photo below.

My dad has always made this salmon dish in a frying pan. He adds fresh tomatoes sliced up, several cloves of garlic, an onion chopped up, a handful of fresh basil and white wine. Sometimes he's added lemon slices which I'm not a fan of. Anyway, tried that this evening with white fish we have that you get in large frozen packs from Costco or somewhere like that. It's economical and they defrost quickly.

Defrost the fish, or use fresh fish. Do everything like my dad does to the salmon above on high heat. Make sure you have a little olive oil in the pan. Put the fish in the pan, then add all your vegetables, except the basil. Put that in when you have 1 min. cooking time. Also add about 1 tsp salt or Kosher salt, tsp oregano, dash pepper.

Served this over bow tie pasta, but you can use whatever pasta works for you, even orzo rice. That would be good. Make sure the fish and veggies are very flavorful in the pan when you try them. The pasta tones this mixture down considerably.

This is good, easy to make and healthy. yay! 

1st Post - Vegetarian Spin on Asian Stir Fry

Hi! So I'm really starting this blog and my first post tonight. However, the stuff I made for dinner yesterday was really good - I thought so and my husband thought so. My dog would probably think so but he didn't get any ;) This is an all vegetarian dish and includes protein, lots of vegetables and carbs in the form of brown rice.
Roughly 350 calories, very little fat, lots of flavor and approx 13g protein.

Start with cooking brown rice. Typical serving is 1/4 cup per person.
    1 container extra firm tofu (try to press as much water out if it as possible)

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup water

1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1  tbsp olive oil

put all this stuff in a bowl and mix together. After the tofu is pressed, get a shallow bowl and put the tofu in with the marinade. I was only able to marinate it for about 15-20 mins. Might take on more flavor if you let it sit longer. 

Heat oven to 425 F. Bake for tofu for 30 mins and don't forget to add the marinade. It will bake into it. Yum! 

For veggies, I used a couple stalks celery, 3 carrots, 1 onion and 4 cloves garlic. Oh, and 1 block of frozen spinach. Chop all the fresh veggies up, put some olive oil in a frying pan and sautee all veggies, including the frozen spinach. It's good. The water from the spinach hydrates the other veggies. Pour lite soy sauce over veggies as they cook - about 1 or 2 tablespoons. 

You can serve the rice, veggies and tofu separately, or put them all together in a bowl. That's what I did and the flavors melded together great ! 

All told, this took about 35 mins. Will post photo of this next time I make it ;) Enjoy! 

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