It's Saturday - we must be cooking

Ruth and I cooked for much of the day today.  We started a little later than usual; had to get groceries first, and then cooked on and off all day.  What did we make?

• Four salads - sweet potato black bean; coleslaw forever, quinoa current and Greek salad.
• One soup - a lentil soup; we also ate it for lunch and it was very good.
• an Asian-themed supper, with ginger fried tofu, egg foo yeung, rice and soy sauce gravy.
• Two pumpkin pies (with fresh pumpkin) - which also means that we made freshly baked pumpkin seeds, and baked pumpkin.

Unfortunately, when we started cleaning everything up, my kitchen sink decided to stop draining; so I think I may have to wash whatever doesn't fit into the dishwasher in my bathtub.  I still have a small bit to clean up - plus the mess from under the sink that got pulled out so that we could try to unclog the sink.  I may also have to pay for a plumber to come by next week.

Tomorrow we've invited a crowd for lunch.  We're planning to have roast pork, sweet potato fries, salads, mixed winter vegetables, scalloped potatoes and pie for dessert.  Note that all of that except for the salads, which we made today, can be cooked in the oven at one time.  That's so we can put it in before we go to church and take it out once we get home again and have everything ready.

It's Ruth and my turn to make the snack for The Party tomorrow night.  We were planning to do tacos in a bag - and just purchase a box of the snack sized Dorito chips because it's right after Hallowe'en, but we couldn't find any; so I think we'll have taco salad instead.  Same idea.

OK, here's the recipes for what we cooked today:

Ginger Fried Tofu (this recipe was in Friday's Leader Post - but we adapted it.  Nicole really, really liked it and took pictures to send home to China to show her parents.  I was going to take pictures as well for my blog, but my phone's dead so you'll have to imagine how nice it looked.)

1 package medium tofu (drained)

Oil for frying

2/3 cup grated carrots (about 2 medium carrots)

2-3 green onions finely chopped

1/4 cup fresh ginger, finely chopped (I purchase my finely chopped ginger already ready in a jar - the same way I purchase my garlic)

2 TLB minced garlic

3 TLB soya sauce

2 TLB apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup honey

1 TLB sesame oil

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. red chili flakes

Method

Cut the tofu into small cubes and deep fry in the oil until brown (about 10 min.).  Drain on paper towel.

While the tofu is deep frying, stir fry the carrot, green onion, ginger and garlic until the carrot is soft (about 5 min.)  Stir together everything else and add to the carrot mixture and continue cooking for another 5 min.  Add the fried tofu, and stir to coat it with the sauce.  Serve hot over rice.

Zucchini Egg Foo Yeung

3 small zucchini - grated

1 medium carrot - grated

6 mushrooms - sliced

1/2 onion - diced

2 cups fresh bean sprouts

Eggs

oil for frying

Mix together all the vegetables.  In a small bowl, crack two eggs at a time, beat them and add a large handful of the vegetable mixture.  Stir until it's all covered with the eggs.  Heat the oil in the frying pan, and add the vegetable egg mixture, forming it into two pancakes.  When brown on one side, carefully turn it over.  

I found that I was able to make 7 pancakes with the vegetable mixture above; which meant that I used 7 eggs, doing two at a time.  

Serve with soya sauce gravy.

Soya Sauce Gravy

1/4 cup soya sauce

1/4 cup cornstarch

3 cups water

Mix the soya sauce and cornstarch together.  Add water and whisk to get rid of any lumps.  Cook in the microwave until the consistency of gravy - about 3-5 minutes.