Sunday nights are cookout nights here at Chez Recessionista,
and tonight’s menu was slated to be a goodie.
I’d been marinating the tofu with buffalo sauce since this morning and
had purchased fresh Brussels sprouts at the Saturday-morning market yesterday
to smoke in vegetarian “bacon” alongside the main course in my trusty Brinkmann
smoker.
The weather, however, had other plans.
Maybe one of y’all can help me figure out a way around it,
but whenever the weather trends toward the foggy and misty – not rainy, per se,
but just sort of overall wet – I have a devil of a time getting my smoker to
stay hot enough (even with, yes, the dome closed so as to avoid water in the coals!). Rather than work at smoking tonight’s dinner
for two hours, only to find the end result soggy and undercooked, I decided to
take things indoors for a change.
Thank heaven for the cast-iron skillet! It imparted a wonderful sear to the buffalo
tofu – and, as LeeLee said whilst leaning against the kitchen doorjamb to
provide some color commentary, the skillet just makes the food look GOOD. “It’s beautiful,” he said, and at that moment
I was so glad I’d married a man who viewed the cast-iron skillet as the work of
functional art it is.
(Gorgeous, no? ;) )
I baked the sprouts wrapped in bacon at 400 degrees for 20
minutes, then cranked the temperature up to 450 for another 20 to cook them
along with the tater tots. By the time
the oven timer chimed, the tofu was ready, and dinner was served!
We served tonight’s tofu in lettuce wraps rather than buns
because we’re trying to watch our girlish figures. And it was a great match! The lettuce was light and airy, not heavy
like our typical potato rolls would be, and it matched with the tofu’s flavor
perfectly, cooling the spice off just a tad.
The stats:
Tofu: $2.00 ($1.00/person)
Buffalo sauce: $1.99 ($1.00/person)
Lettuce: $2.99 ($1.50/person)
“Bacon”: $3.50 ($1.75/person)
Sprouts: $3.00 ($1.50/person)
Tater tots: $1.99 ($0.50/person)
GRAND TOTAL: $15.47 … or $7.25 per person.
BUT WAIT! This meal makes
enough for one of us to have for lunch tomorrow. So the per-person price goes down even more!
:)
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