Tangerine Tofu

For the past few weeks, I've been doing a real push to eat more like the books I read this past year (Omnivore's Dilemma and The End of Overeating). Less meat, more grass-feed dairy, local eggs, and less processed food overall. Fortunately, I've had k feeding me excellent recipes as I embark on this dietary change.

It's been an interesting learning experience. Some weeks, I totally rock it and have lots of good recipes to share (like this past week: Tangerine Tofu, Super Bean Burritos, Skillet Carbonara, and Vegetable Lentil Soup). Other weeks are painful, like the week before when we had bean dishes every. single. night. So, Friday, we went to McDonald's because I was going to throw up if I had to eat one more bean dish. I wish I could complain more about it, but um, I'm the person who does all the menu planning and the cooking.

After the disastrous Bean Week, I'm trying to do a pasta dish, an egg dish (with leftover pasta for Asher), a bean dish, and a meat dish each week. Nate has been a good sport about my experiments thus far. Wish I could say the same about the smaller boys.

Anyway...I made this dish last week, and the sauce tastes quite a bit like Panda Express' Orange Chicken. Unfortunately, Nate was working late most of the week, and he can't confirm that this is true. You'd want his opinion though because he is a connoisseur when it comes to Panda Express' Orange Chicken (note: the best is apparently at Fashion Square mall).

This is another Guy Fieri recipe. He makes it with flank steak, I used tofu. Drain the tofu first, but then, it's an easy substitute for the meat. Also, I've taken a picture of the chili sauce I used; it's sweet and not too spicy. I find there is a WIDE variation in chili sauces. This one added a bit of warmth to the dish but no heat.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/guy-fieri/spicy-tangerine-beef-recipe/index.html

Incidentally, I serve my kids tofu every so often. The extra oil (3 T in the recipe) fried this tofu up beautifully, and my kids loved it. In fact, Luke picked the tofu out and left the rice.