The Kind Diet | Grass | Dirt

As we all know, everything is made better by frying, especially vegetables. Well, now I’ve discovered that it works on tofu, too. I just went into the kitchen hungry, and thought I’d try another Kind Diet recipe: Crispy Tofu Slices with Orange Dipping Sauce.

It’s delicious! Basically you dredge slices of marinated tofu in a mixture of flours, and then you fry them up. There’s a dipping sauce included, which I need to figure out how to thicken. It’s just orange juice and maple syrup, and it doesn’t cling to the tofu as well as I’d like, but then of course in my ideal magical world sugar just clings to everything in an inch-thick crust, without making our arteries hard or giving us diabetes. What a world!

Here’s what the tofu looks like when you take it out of the package. It comes marinated (I’d never noticed marinated tofu before, but it’s there – at least at PCC in Seattle it’s there):

About as appealing as raw meat, wouldn’t you say? But you slice it up, dredge it in a mix of flours, and then fry it in a pan of oil (the recipe calls for safflower but I used canola):

Then you lay it out on some paper towels to soak up the excess oil (there isn’t much at all), whip up the dipping juice, and viola! Tofu that isn’t that offensive! In fact it’s actually quite nice!

I was still hesitant to eat it. It’s TOFU after all. I got fooled a few weeks ago when we all hopped in the car to go get a Christmas tree, and I ordered “tofu wraps” at a Pho place. DISASTER. It tasted like soft, mushy, soapy shoe leather. This was after just a few days of being vegetarian, and let me tell you, I was rethinking my options. Greg ventured a bite and said, “Oh it’s not that bad,” and then went back to his delicious-smelling beef broth and noodles. And then I threw food at him.

In this recipe, I’m sure that it helped a lot having the tofu both marinated and fried. I can’t eat a lot of fried foods due to my lipid levels, but this fine to eat once in awhile (certainly much healthier than my usual curly fries), and I’m guessing I could even get this past the kids if I called it chicken. If I call it tofu I might as well call it snails and make Jason speak French all through dinner.

For the last couple weeks I’ve been trying to make Barley Casserole, from Alicia Silverstone’s yummy new book, The Kind Diet. I finally had to post on her website’s forums today:

I’ve tried this three times, but I can’t get past the barley. Each time the barley gets either burnt or turns to mush.

The directions say:

“Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan; add the barley, and cook for approximately 55 to 60 minutes or until tender. Drain off any remaining water, and set cooked barley aside.”

I assume there should be a comment in there about turning down the heat to simmer, right? Are you supposed to keep the barley at a boil for an hour? That didn’t make sense to me, so I simmered it for an hour. The first time it cooked too long and got mushy. The second time I let it boil too long and it burned. The third time I thought I had it right, but it was mushy again.
Has anyone else made this dish? Any barley tips?

What about you guys? Any BARLEY MASTERS out there? Care to share your magic?

Category Archives: The Kind Diet

Tofu tastes good! When you fry it, of course.

Barley eludes me