APRIL 2017 COTM: DINNER, reports on PASTA & NOODLES and TOFU

MAPO TOFU p.217

Having never eaten mapo tofu before I wasn't sure what to expect. The headnote describes this dish as "funky, meaty, fiery flavors". I was able to buy all the ingredients at my local grocery store which made me very happy.

The dish was easy and quick to pull together. I cooked the pork and mushroom mixture a bit too long in my quest to get it well browned as the recipe stated so my pork was a bit crunchy. I served it over white rice.

Both my husband and I liked the dish. It was very flavorful but not even a bit fiery. The Sichuan peppercorns did give it that mouth numbing feeling but there was no heat. After looking at other recipes for mapo tofu I saw that many added chili oil. I added chili oil to the leftovers and it greatly improved the taste. I'd make it again with this one modification.

Roasted Tofu with Broccoli Rabe and Garlic (pg. 213)

This was a mixed bag. I had issues with the tofu but the rabe was delicious. I've never roasted rabe before and it really works well.

There are two different marinades, one for the tofu and one for the rabe. I had one package of tofu and one bunch of rabe so I halved everything.

Tofu marinade - whisk garlic, fish sauce, lemon juice and olive oil. Brush it on cut slabs of tofu on a lightly oiled baking sheet (I used a cast iron skillet). Roast the tofu for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, crush coriander seeds and toss it with garlic, salt, chili flakes, olive oil and the rabe. Spread the rabe on another baking sheet.

Flip the tofu, brush the rest of the marinade and roast. Add the rabe to the oven and roast that as well.

I had issues with the tofu bc it wouldn't release from the skillet. By the time I got it to release, the outer skin was very tough. Looking back, I'm wondering if I forgot to oil the cast iron skillet. But, I think the prep of this would be easier if I stir fried the tofu in my wok and then added the marinade towards the end. There was no discernible flavor of the marinade in my tofu.

But, I did love the prep of the rabe.

CACIO E PEPE with ASPARAGUS and PEAS, page 179

This was very good for a quick pasta dish.

Cook 8 oz spaghetti al dente. In skillet, saute 1/2 Tbsp pepper in 1 Tbsp butter for 1 minute. Add 1/4 cup pasta water and 1 Tbsp butter and stir. Add pasta, 2/3 cup peas, 8 oz pencil thin asparagus cut into 1 inch lengths, 1 oz pecorino toscano, 1 oz pecorino romano, and 2 oz parmesan (all cheeses grated). Toss and cook 1 minute, Add extra pasta water if too dry. Season with salt. Top with a drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle of cheese, and fresh chives.

I couldn't find pecorino toscano, so used her suggestion and added extra parmesan. No pencil thin asparagus were to be found so I cut fat asparagus stalks into quarters lengthwise. The asparagus did not get done enough in the short cooking time in the skillet so if I am faced with fat and slightly tough asparagus again, I might cook them in the pasta water for a minute or two before adding to skillet. She says this serves 2 to 3. I cut the recipe in half and it was a huge serving, so next time will make a third. It is definitely worth a repeat when local asparagus are available.

FUSILLI & ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH CAPERS, p.190

My library copy of the book came in yesterday-- just in time to make something easy for a late lunch. I happened to have a selection of orphaned brassicas and a nearly-empty jar of capers in the fridge, so this recipe was a perfect choice. It was delicious.

Cauliflower and capers are seasoned and roasted with olive oil until golden brown. Meanwhile, garlic paste is tossed with butter, a touch more olive oil, lemon zest, optional parmigiano-reggiano, and minced capers. All is mixed with drained whole wheat fusilli and topped with roasted pine nuts and extra lemon juice. That's it, that's all.
This is such a versatile recipe. I doubled the veg in mix with a combination of brussels sprouts and cauliflower, and upped the (regular wheat flour) pasta to about 3/4 lb, increasing the flavouring ingredients accordingly. I needed to add a bit of pasta water to make it slightly less dry. Omitted the pine nuts. In this case the recipe served 1 adult and three (very hungry) boys quite well.

This was simple, quick, and very satisfying. The roasted capers were a new one to me - they became crispy little flavour nuggets in the bowl, and were absolutely addictive! I think this would be great with some garlicky toasted breadcrumbs sprinkled on top for added texture, but as it was, the garlic and lemon came through loud and clear.

COLD SESAME NOODLES WITH CELERY SALAD (ebook ed.)

The celery salad portion has celery, scallions, and cilantro tossed with Sichuan peppercorns, sesame oil, rice vinegar, and salt. After making this and letting it sit a while, I tasted, and decided it needed more vinegar, and some chile oil.

This salad goes on top of noodles dressed in a mix of peanut butter, sesame paste, soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, chile garlic paste, grated garlic, and grated ginger. Sesame seeds are supposed to garnish, but I forgot them, even though they were sitting right there on the counter. I halved the amount of pasta, but used the full amount of dressing. Note that if you make this according to the directions in the recipe, you will end up with hot sesame noodles, as there are no instructions for cooling the noodles off (they are just in the ingredient list as "cooked according to the packaging instructions").

This was fine, but not great. I was not a fan of the celery salad, especially before spiking it up with chile oil. The Sichuan peppercorns with no balancing heat just weren't doing anything for me. The noodles in their dressing were OK, but I've made much better versions. A quick look at EYB shows me that in my cookbook collection, I've got 638 recipes for sesame noodles. No reason to make this version again.

SWEET & SOUR TOFU w/ CORN (p. 210)

Lulu loved this. I thought it was ... fine. Certainly very easy, especially with frozen corn. But we agreed that there was nothing sweet about this recipe; that is actually fine with both of us, as sweet isn't what we're looking for, but it does make you question the name of the recipe. If you want something sweet, you should probably up the 1 tsp of honey a lot (and for vegans out there, I think sugar would work fine).

Combine minced garlic, thinly sliced chilies (I went with two big jalapenos, one with the seeds still in), soy sauce, ginger, lime juice, sesame oil, fish sauce and honey. Heat a skillet (I used my wok) until very hot, add cubed firm tofu and let sit without moving for 2-3 minutes, then toss and let sit for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from pan and sprinkle with salt. Add corn, scallions and halved cherry tomatoes (I used chopped plums) to the pan and stir fry, stir in the soy/garlic/etc. mixture and cook for about a minute until the flavors come together. Add the tofu and combine. I served this over rice. Perfectly nice dinner, and easy, but for me nothing special but Lulu gave it huge thumbs up.

STIR FRIED TOFU WITH SUMMER SQUASH, BASIL, AND COCONUT Pg. 209

I made this a few days ago and I don't have the book with me so I'll do my best to summarize the method from memory but I know I diverged from her instructions because I doubled the recipe so I had to work with two pans.

You start by marinating the tofu in some soy, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic. You then saute some onions for about 7 minutes until they begin to brown a bit. In goes a good amount of garlic and once this has cooked for a bit you add the squash (zucchini in my case) and let things colour a bit. While this was happening I seared my marinated tofu on all sides in a separate pan. Once everything was nicely coloured I added the tofu to the squash and onions and then tossed in some torn up basil and squeezed over some lime juice. For a double recipe I used half a large lime but it could have gone with the full amount.

We quite liked this dish. The sesame marinade does give the seared tofu a lovely flavour that ended up pairing very well with the zucchini. At first I wasn't sure about the onion as it added quite a sweet note to the dish, but as we ate I grew accustomed to it and I found that overall I quite liked it. The flavours weren't completely harmonious but they were interesting and I found myself going back for more.

I did leave out the coconut as I'm not a huge fan and I did cut the sesame with some peanut oil when sautéing. I like sesame oil but I don't generally saute in it and I was worried it would be too much to go with straight sesame. I didn't regret my choice but that is our preference.

As a doubled recipe this made about 6 portions for us along with some rice and simply sautéed gai lan with oyster sauce. When we had it for leftovers I added a bit of sriracha for heat and I found it was a welcome addition.

MAPLE-ROASTED TOFU WITH WINTER SQUASH (ebook)

I was being messaged constantly by the other board members of the charity I work with while cooking dinner last night, so I made this in a very distracted state. Plus I was making two other dishes simultaneously. I never claimed to be a multi-tasker. In the kitchen, yes, but I find the messaging to be extremely distracting. And why, oh why, does a board argument always have to come up right at dinnertime? Don't these people eat?

Anyway, because of the distractions, it's hard to tell you exactly what I did. I did modify the timing, but I didn't track the time, so I can't say by how much. I used 14 oz of tofu, the lower end of the range called for. I cut the tofu into cubes of about 1", which is smaller than called for or shown in the photo. As someone already noted, the photo shows acorn squash cut into wedges, while the recipe calls for butternut cut into 1" cubes. I used cubed butternut. The recipe calls for 6 cups (!). I didn't have that much, so I used only about 2 cups. Even so, that came out to be about a 1-1 ratio of tofu to squash.

1/4 cup maple syrup, ginger, and "chile powder" (an unfortunate choice of words, as I think she means ground chile) go into a saucepan and are reduced by 1/3. This is already problematic, because in my smallest saucepan (1 qt All-Clad), this mixture barely coats the bottom, and there is no way to judge when it is reduced by 1/4, 1/3, 1/2.... So guesstimating happened. Half of this is tossed with the squash on a baking sheet. Think about this for a minute here. We've got 1/4 cup of liquid which has been reduced by 1/3, so now 1/6 a cup of liquid, which is supposed to coat 6 cups of cubed squash. Yeah, right. Well, I only had 2 cups of squash, so it worked OK. The squash is supposed to be seasoned with a "generous pinch" of salt and pepper (remember, that's for 6 cups as the recipe is written), and a tablespoon of chopped fresh sage. This gets roasted at 425 degrees for 45 minutes. I ended up roasting the squash for quite a bit longer (can't tell you exactly how long) to get browning at the edges and a bit of crispness at the corners.

Meanwhile, back on the range, you add soy sauce and vinegar (a pretty minuscule amount) to the remaining maple syrup mixture. The tofu is supposed to be sprinkled with salt, then brushed with half of the remaining maple/soy mixute (1/6 cup, to which has been added 2.5 tsp of liquid, bringing the volume up to a whopping 3.5 tablespoons, but you are using half of that, so brushing the tofu with 1.75 tablespoons of glaze). At this point I gave up and added a splash more of all the ingredients to the saucepan, and brushed the tofu with that. I also coated both sides of the tofu at once, instead of just one side and doing the other side midway through roasting (this was not an intentional change, I was just distracted and didn't read the instructions). The result was that some of my tofu got overly caramelized on one side (I also cooked it longer than instructed).

Tofu and squash get tossed together in a bowl, garnished with basil or cilantro (cilantro in my case), and scallions. Only now do I see the instructions to drizzle with more sherry vinegar, which might have helped. As it was, the balance was too sweet. The squash gets very sweet during roasting, so I would have preferred more acid in the glaze. The tofu comes out pretty bland. Actually the squash does too, except for being sweet. There just isn't enough ginger or chile to stand out, and the sage was completely lost. If you actually used the full amount of squash (3 times what I used), the glaze would have been imperceptible. So even though I was distracted and not completely following directions, I think this recipe would be problematic to make as written.

POMEGRANATE ROASTED TOFU WITH EGGPLANT AND TOASTED CUMIN - ebook ed.

So, we liked this quite a bit better than the butternut squash and roasted tofu from the night before.. This time, I turned off my phone so I could cook without (or at least with minimal) distraction, and followed the recipe very closely. I still had some gripes with how the recipe is written (and that's my feeling about the book in general so far - just a bit on the sloppy side).

I made a half recipe with 14 oz of tofu and a large eggplant of about 1.5 lbs. You make a glaze of pomegranate molasses, soy sauce, and olive oil. There are precise instructions for cutting the tofu, and I followed them: the block is cut crosswise into 1" slabs. For a 14 oz. block, this yielded 5 slabs, each about 2"X4" and of course 1" thick. These are laid out on a baking sheet, sprinkled with salt, then you brush the glaze on top. The eggplant is cubed, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper ("to taste" - two useless words in this case, which should have been omitted). For me making a half recipe, the tofu took up one quarter sheet pan, and the eggplant a half sheet pan. Both tofu and eggplant go in a 425-degree oven. In my oven, which is a pretty good-sized one, this just barely fit on one rack. If I'd been making a full recipe, they definitely wouldn't have, but there is no instruction on which pan should be on the upper rack, or if it matters. The eggplant is supposed to cook for 35-45 minutes, being tossed once or twice, and with the cumin seeds thrown in for the last 10 minutes, or at the 25-35 minute mark. The tofu, meanwhile, is supposed to cook 20 minutes, then be flipped and have glaze brushed on the other side, and cook for another 15-20 minutes. Got that? You can have some fun figuring out how you want to set your timer. I just did 20 minutes, flipped and glazed the tofu, stirred the eggplant, then did 15 minutes more, tossed eggplant with cumin seeds and removed tofu from oven, then 10 minutes more on the eggplant.

When all this comes out of the oven, the eggplant is tossed with more pomegranate molasses, and some fresh herbs (I used cilantro and mint). This is plated, with the tofu slabs being placed on top. I actually did this as instructed and the second photo is how that comes out. The eggplant is invisible because it is covered with huge slabs of tofu (which look blackened in the photo, but they were not. The glaze was just very dark).

To actually serve it, I cut the tofu slabs into quarters, and tossed with the eggplant. The final dish was pretty good. You could taste the cumin in the eggplant, and the herbs. The tofu was fine, although not the most exciting tofu prep I've had by far. I made a quinoa salad with roasted cherry tomatoes and red onion, and some of the sweet potato mostarda from DRR diced up and thrown in. With the side dish, the two of us had one serving's worth of leftovers of the tofu and eggplant.

ORECCHIETTE WITH BROCCOLI RABE AND ALMONDS, p. 187

I have a tried & true recipe for pasta with broccoli rabe, but I was quite curious to see if gussying up the dish with caramelized onions and toasted sliced almonds improves it. Short answer - no. This pasta was fine but not great. I prefer my regular recipe which is just broccoli rabe, garlic and red pepper flakes. I felt that the onions diluted the flavor and there wasn't enough garlic. The almonds added some crunch and protein but on the whole I didn't feel they added a lot either.

SHRIMP PAD THAI WITH SUGAR SNAP PEAS AND BASIL p, 200

Very pleased with the flavors of this one, although the ratio of shrimp to noodles was a bit off for us. I'll be adding another 12 oz. of medium shrimp to the half-recipe of noodles leftover, giving us 4 generous servings total from the recipe that says it serves 2.

No photo since mine turned uniformly brown from the sauce. I followed directions and added the thinly sliced sugar snap peas and previously warmed/briefly cooked shrimp along with the sauce and softened noodles, to the sauteed shallots (green onions for me), garlic and chili peppers (sweet red pepper for me). After a few minutes, 2 beaten eggs are tossed with the full mixture and cooked another couple of minutes. For better color next time, I plan to cook the snap peas briefly after the shrimp and set both aside until after the egg/noodle/sauce mixture has cooked, then add/toss.

The ingredients list says 1 lime. Directions have you zest half a lime, reserve. Then squeeze 1 T. lime juice into the fish sauce/tamarind concentrate/brown sugar /peanut oil mixture. That reserved zest and the other half of the lime never get called for in the recipe. I used the zest to garnish (along with basil and light-salt dry roasted peanuts), and sliced the half lime for us to squeeze over portions at the table.

Despite 20 minutes of soaking and several minutes of cooking at the end, my rice noodles were a bit more chewy than ideal. Since these aren't something I usually keep on-hand, I think I'd be fine with using cooked fettuccini (wheat) noodles.

Recipe lists 5 T. peanut oil - some is used in sauce, the rest in cooking. I used 4 T and probably could have reduced to 3. Recipe lists salt, as needed - I added none.

Spicy pork noodles with ginger and bok choy, p197 (reposting in correct thread)

I have discovered a fantastic source of super-fresh rice noodles in an alley in Chinatown, so I bought a package and made this recipe. It was a super tasty late and fairly quick supper for the two of us last night, especially as I didn't have to cook the noodles.

Basically you stir-fry ground pork in oil until it's cooked and then add soy and rice vinegar and set aside. (I used half a pound as there were only two of us and did this a little ahead of time and finished the dish when Mr GG got in the door from his work trip to Brussels.)

To finish, stir-fry chopped ginger, garlic, spring onion and chilli until fragrant and then add sliced bok choy stems and salt (my grocer only had pak choy). After a couple of minutes, add the leaves, the pork and the noodles, and heat through with a bit more soy and vinegar. Garnish with more chopped spring onion, coriander and sesame oil. Serve with a dipping sauce of sliced ginger just covered with Chinese black vinegar.

This was so good. 10 out of 10 from Mr GG. I loved the slippy, fresh noodles and if you can get some they're really great in this. I didn't weigh my package but it was probably a bit less than a pound, so I would roughly double the 8oz of dried noodles called for (for 4), unless you have a very small appetite. I think 100g per person is a reasonable serving of noodles, and what Clark suggests for pasta so go figure!

STOVETOP MAC & CHEESE (p 164)

This was excellent. Rich and creamy but easier than making a roux. There's no oven time (or breadcrumbs) but also one less dish. Definitely a repeat for a weeknight.

You cook the pasta ( 8 oz) and drain, then heat heavy cream (1/3 cup) a few minutes until reduced by half. Stir in 5 oz grated cheddar cheese until melted then stir in the pasta and some black
Pepper. I left out the optional grated nutmeg (to taste)

COCONUT RICE NOODLES WITH EGGPLANT AND GINGER P 199

This is really curry for a large group- see the pic below- MC says serves 4 and as a side with grilled fish or meat. I have enough to feed my neighbors.

Prepare your rice noodles.

Create a paste in a food processor of Thai Chile, garlic, lemon grass, ginger, cilantro, lime zest, curry powder and coconut oil. Reserve

Slice eggplant into 1 inch cubes, add to pan with coconut oil and brown 10 min or so, remove and reserve
Add a sliced onion to pot, cook, eventually add 2c of broth, can of coconut milk and ginger paste- bring to boil- Add eggplant mixture- Cook to soften.
Add Fish Sauce
Add cherry tomatoes, corn, rao rom (or basil) lime and serve
Put noodles in separate bowls and serve the sauce on top garnished with lime/ rao rom.

--
At first while cooking , and after a decent amount of prep work, I was underwhelmed- but after 40 minutes the sauce started to take on some depth and fresh corn and cherry tomatoes add needed elements-- Do not skip this.

This dish is flavorful and not spicy. It does taste like its from the local Thai place with a depth of spice, all of this is enhanced with the rice noodles and lime zest for freshness.

I added zucchini to the dish and used frozen corn and basil instead of roa rom and used vegetable stock
I think you could add tofu, shrimp or chicken if you wanted non- veg curry.

Maybe a redo if I have a craving-but more likely to carry out-- Its very pretty in the dish.

LEMONY PASTA WITH CHICKPEAS AND PARSLEY, pg 196

Unfortunately no picture of this one, but it wasn't very photogenic anyway. Really tasty pasta dish, though! While you boil your pasta, you mash up a can of chickpeas so that they are about half-crushed. You then fry some garlic, onion, rosemary, and chile flakes in a skillet until soft and caramelizing before adding the chickpeas and some of their cooking liquid (or water if they are canned--I used mostly water with a bit of the canning liquid). This sauce cooks down for a bit, then the al dente pasta is stirred in, plus a whole bunch of parsley (I subbed basil and used considerably less than a whole bunch), plus some Parmesan cheese, butter, lemon zest, and black pepper.

I love any version of pasta with chickpeas so I knew I'd enjoy this one too. I thought the sauce was really delicious, but I didn't feel like smashing the chickpeas really added anything to this dish, so next time I'd leave them whole. Also, I think 3 cups of parsley leaves would have been a crazy amount to add here. Maybe others like cooked herbs more than I do, but that sounded a bit much to me. I only used basil because I had some that needed to be used up, but I thought that its flavor worked really nicely here, so I'd probably use it again.

PAPPARDELLE (egg noodles) WITH CHICKEN LIVERS AND ROSEMARY, p. 193 - Very tasty & reasonably quick (about 40 minutes with all prep). We like chicken liver and have it every few months -- this recipe will get alternated with our old favorite -- it's that good.

MC comments in the top note about having trouble finding chicken livers. They're readily available at grocers here, in the frozen meats or frozen poultry section in what looks like a sour cream container - round white plastic. Takes about 2 days to thaw in the fridge. They're a bit gross-looking and feeling to prep - rinse, pat dry with a paper towel, remove the thready membrane between the pairs of lobes, and cut larger lobes to 1 inch.

A half-pound of very wide noodles (fresh papparadelle in recipe, dried wide egg noodles for us) is boiled until done, then tossed in a large serving bowl with 2 T. butter and 2 T. of the reserved pasta water.

Meanwhile, a half cup of sliced onions (shallots in the recipe), and 2 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary, (plus pinch of red pepper flakes for non-spice-wimps) are caramelized in some olive oil (recipe says 2 T, I used 1) in a skillet. Another T. oil and the livers are added to the pan and left undisturbed a minute to brown. Then some garlic, 2 T. sherry & 2 T. balsamic vinegar are added, and the mixture stirred until done to your taste (2 minutes for author, more like 5-7 minutes for us). Some salt & fresh ground pepper, some optional chopped fresh parsley to garnish.

The recipe calls for the liver mixture to be scraped out of skillet over the serving bowl of hot pasta to serve. Expecting leftover noodles (and there were 2 - 3 pasta servings leftover), I chose to serve them separately, topping noodles with liver for each plateful. This fed 2 generously and there's a single lunch/snack portion of the liver left.

FETTUCINE WITH SPICY ANCHOVY BREAD CRUMBS, p. 180

This is a pretty delicious and super easy pantry meal. Perfect for a weeknight, or getting home from a few days away. While you bring your pasta water to a boil and cook your fettucine until it's "just shy of al dente," you toast panko bread crumbs in olive oil until they are dark and golden. Then set those aside and in the same pan melt butter and add anchovies and lemon zest, cooking until the anchovies melt. Add the pasta to this mixture and toss and cook for another minute. Off heat, add lemon juice, breadcrumbs, and chopped parsley.

A couple of notes. The recipe says "spicy" but there is no call for chili flakes anywhere in the recipe. Very odd. They'd be welcome here. I love breadcrumbs in pasta but thought there was way too much here--1/2 cup for 8 oz of pasta. But that might have just been me--my partner thought it was a nice amount of breadcrumbs. However, we both felt that there was not enough anchovy flavor. The recipe calls for 6-10 fillets. My partner, who did the prep, used 7.5 (?) but if we were to make this again, I'd go with 11 or 12, since the anchovies are kind of the main act here. The lemon flavor is great and for me, the parsley is not optional. Served this with a baby spinach, cherry tomato, and radish salad.

PASTA CARBONARA TORTE, p. 194

Not very photogenic nor very exciting, I'm afraid. It is milk and egg, pasta, chopped meat and sage, cheese and tomato. I did a half recipe, used the right cheeses (Gruyère, pecorino, Parmesan) and Canadian bacon. Fettucine instead of spaghetti. Started in a skillet and then finished in the oven, it's pretty much equal to the sum of its parts, and I don't think I'd make it again.

RED CURRY & COCONUT TOFU WITH CHERRY TOMATOES AND GREEN BEANS page 221

I loved this! I made it just a few days after getting the book last month, and I'm so glad I started with this recipe!

The prep was streamlined and didn't turn my kitchen upside down. Yay! Extremely weeknight friendly. Sauté up veggies: ginger, shallots, garlic, chile, cilantro stems. First time for me using the cilantro stems this way! Next add the mushrooms and cook until golden - her recipe calls for shiitake, but I used quartered button mushrooms and added more than the 4oz (about 10 oz? I love mushrooms).

Then stir in the next few ingredients: red curry paste, cook 2 mins, then the coconut milk, fish sauce, lime zest and juice. Add cubed tofu (I pressed mine very well before cubing) and sliced green beans, and cook about 10 minutes. I added the cherry tomatoes in the last few minutes. So cute and yummy - don't skip them!

Ummm, but where are the cherry tomatoes in the recipe? Okay, so this was clearly one of the editing errors - cherry tomatoes appear in the title, but are nowhere to be found in the ingredient list or instructions. I love cherry tomatoes and once I noticed the error, I decided they were going in anyway! :) I just found another curry recipe containing cherry toms and confirmed my thought to toss them in at the last few minutes. I ended up loving the flavors of this dish so much that I wasn't even annoyed over the mistake.

I served this over the coconut rice on page 381 and sprinkled more cilantro and some basil over the top. I really loved every bite of the curry, and it was perfect with this rice. A soothing fragrant healthy brightly-colored meal, and an absolute keeper! Fans of Thai veggie curries - give it a try!

**Surprise bonus** I decided to freeze some even though I didn't know how that would work with the tofu. Result: super! Honestly just as delicious as the first time. Perfect for a work lunch with the coconut rice (the rice freezes well too, separately in a ziplock bag). I will absolutely make this curry and the rice again.