Tofu Spring Rolls

My favorite restaurant in Pittsburgh, somewhat regrettably, is Pho Minh on Penn Avenue in Garfield. It is a family-run Vietnamese joint with excellent food, and it’s BYOB. While I’ve always dined there without incident, I have heard stories of many insane things happening there. Here is the building. I did not take this picture.

My friend Matt tells a story about walking by Pho Minh with a friend of his, who was saying that she thought the place was shady. Matt responded, “Come on, it isn’t that bad,” just as someone was thrown up against the window inside. I really like Pho Minh.

But none of this is the point. The point is that they have some of the best tofu spring rolls I have ever had, and I decided to try to replicate them.

For this, you will need:

About a ½ pound of extra firm tofu
Hoisin sauce
Soy sauce
Spring roll wrappers
Mai fun rice noodles, cooked according to package directions and then chopped
Cucumbers, cut into very thin planks
Carrots, grated
Cilantro, chopped
Spinach
Sesame seeds (optional)

Start by pressing the tofu and cutting it into slabs about a half inch thick, a half inch wide and two inches long. You can always cut them smaller after cooking them; you just don’t want them to fall apart in the pan. Brush them with hoisin sauce and start heating a skillet—we’re going to sear them.

Once the skillet is nice and hot (it’s important that it be dry, so make sure to use a nonstick pan), throw your tofu pieces in and let them cook. This caused a ridiculous amount of smoke in my kitchen, so I turned on the stove fan. It didn’t help much, eventually Rob came down and threw the back door open and glared at me, shivering. Whatever, the tofu was good.

Don’t move it around too much, but flip after a few minutes. There’s really no science to this, just keep your eye on it. Once it’s all cooked, put the pieces on a plate and pop them in the fridge to cool.

Now, get a large bowl of hot water—not so hot you can’t stick your hands in it, but hot nonetheless. Take one spring roll wrapper and submerge it in the water until it gets pliable and sticky. Spread it on your work surface and top with a few tofu slabs, some noodles, cucumber, carrots, lots of cilantro and a few leaves of spinach, just for crunch. Roll the bottom part over the pile of goodness and then fold the sides in and roll all the way up. You’ll have to work quickly, as the spring roll wrappers might get a little gunky. This takes a bit of practice, but you’ll get the hang of it.

MMMHMMM.

Here is the inside:

For the dipping sauce, I just mixed hoisin sauce with soy sauce to my taste, and then added some sesame seeds for garnish. This was not nearly as good as Pho Minh’s, but I have no idea what is in theirs. I know, if I were smart, I’d have put it in a light colored bowl so you could see it. I really need some new dishes.

All in all, it was a good meal, although I couldn’t eat nearly as many of them as I thought I could. Rob (who also loves Pho Minh, but he digs the beef soup thing) gave it eight hot dogs.

Well, my ART DIRECTOR (cough, Rob, cough) got a little LAZY with things, and thus we have 15 dishes that I’ve cooked and Rob photographed that he just hasn’t gotten around to uploading and tinkering with yet. We’re having a “staff meeting” tonight (in which I yell at Rob for his lack of devotion to thefoodsex.) So what does that mean? New post tonight, and then it’s on! I am so pumped for this.

Also, read the newly updated About thefoodsex.com page–it’ll explain why you’re about to see the kind of recipes that I will be posting soon.

So as I mentioned yesterday, my friend Laura will be taking over most of the baking duties on this site. Last night, she made a batch of banana cookies. Unfortunately for me (for many reasons) Laura lives in Columbus, so I didn’t even get to try a cookie. But they look damn good!

She wanted to call these “Chunky Monkey Banana Cookies” but as I am worried about trademark lawsuits, we’ll call them….

Crunky Monkey Banana Cookies

Note from Laura, who had a really mean roommate in college: I recommend people don’t make these if they have a neurotic roommate who will put overripe bananas on their pillow (Bitch, I’m still not over it, can you tell?)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt (I recommend NOT pouring it into a teaspoon over the batter)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/4 stick of butter flavored Crisco (don’t tell my mom, she’d flip out.  But, the shortening makes a moister cookie)
1 egg
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 3/4 cups uncooked oatmeal 

In a bowl, combine the Crisco, egg and bananas.  Hand mix it, it will be chunky. Don’t use an electric mixer. 
Then combine all the dry ingredients, except the oatmeal.  It’s really important to do the wet ingredients first, then the dry. Once incorporated, add the oatmeal and mix gently. 
Use a scoop to portion out 12 cookies per tray.  They don’t need to be spaced out too far apart, as they don’t spread much when they bake. 

Bake at 350 degrees, It really depends on your oven, so I would recommend starting to bake them at 12 minutes, and see if they are golden brown.  Then check on them every three minutes, they probably wouldn’t bake for more than 20 minutes.  Cool on a rack.  And since they are made with bananas, that means they’re healthy.  So you can eat a bunch.  Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

See? I couldn’t have done that. Plus, Laura looks a lot better with an apron and mixing bowl than I do.

So, this will most likely be one of my last baking entries. Why? Because I suck at it. Why else? Because my good friend Laura, she of the gorgeous monkey cupcakes, has applied to do a regular contributing post of her baked goods. Since she is awesome and I am terrible, and she is kind and I am a jerk, and she is beautiful and I am a toad, I agreed. So thus, I leave you with this: my Christmas cookie medley.

My grandmother had commissioned me to bake a few kinds of cookies for Christmas. I ended up not having to make the labor-intensive gingerbread men, and instead baked all of these at midnight on December 23rd. Because I am a procrastinator who SUCKS AT BAKING.

Anyway, there are three kinds of cookies on this plate. If you look very closely at the plate, under the rum balls, you may be able to see that my cookies were, in fact, displayed on a Last Supper plate, probably to remove the sin of my having touched them. Catholics.

Anyway, the white cookies along the outside are butter balls, that Nana requested; the dark brown cookies are rum balls (oh rum balls, how I love thee) and the lumpy jobs up front are oatmeal-dried cherry-white chocolate cookies. The first two recipes are courtesy of my grandmother, and the third is an adaptation from Cooking Light. (Rob’s dad likes these also. At least SOMEONE likes my baking. Or maybe he’s just being nice.)

Here is the recipe for each:

Butter Balls
2 sticks of butter, softened (seriously, I know. These things clogged some major arteries)
2 tsp vanilla
4 TBS white sugar
2 cups flour
½ cup chopped walnuts

Mix all ingredients together. Roll into balls the size of a walnut. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. DO NOT spray or grease your nonstick cookie sheet beforehand, as this will cause the cookies to spread.

Remove from oven and allow to cool. Roll in powdered sugar.

Rum Balls
2 cups crushed vanilla wafers (I use Nilla brand)
1 cup walnut meal (or ground walnuts)
2 TBS light corn syrup
2 TBS cocoa powder
1/3 cup dark rum…plus another splash or two, oh and a glass for the baker

Mix all ingredients together. Roll into SuperBouncyBall-sized balls (you know exactluy what I mean, don’t act like you didn’t spend your quarters on these things in the grocery store machines) and then roll in a mixture of equal parts cocoa powder and powdered sugar. So, the rum doesn’t cook out of these, which means they are actually alcoholic. I mean, if you ate the whole batch, that’s the equivalent of like two shots of rum, so um…eat responsibly. Yeah.

Oatmeal-Dried Cherry-White Chocolate Cookies
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (about 3 1/3 ounces)
1 cup regular oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
3/4 cup dried cherries
1/3 cup white chocolate chips

Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt; stir with a whisk. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until well-blended. Add vanilla and egg; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until blended. Add cherries and chips, mix carefully.

Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 12 minutes. Cool, remove, eat!

So I have to say, I’m wildly impressed by the fact that I managed to launch a new version of thefoodsex. Now listen. I know nothing works and everything looks kinda crappy right now, but I’m working on it, I swear!