Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Foolproof Tofu Burgers and Phone Meltdowns

So I had a breakdown on the phone with Time Warner Cable last night.

Perhaps “breakdown” is a strong word. I burst into tears and uttered the words, “please, sir, you can’t do this to me,” when I was told that no technician would be available to fix my modem until next Wednesday. Does that count?

In retrospect, this little episode should have been a welcome, and perhaps a cautionary, signal of how dependent my life has become on the whims of technology. But it didn’t feel welcome. It felt like a breakdown.

Before you decide to stage a “Gena, you’ve gotten a little too attached to blogging” intervention, let me ‘splain: it isn’t just blogging. I take a lot of work home, each and every night, and a lot of it needs to happen online. My counseling practice is, at this point, almost exclusively via email, and there are other parts of my work life that depend heavily on internet access. So, not having a working modem means a lot more than having to update my blog from the office. It means falling way behind on a lot of things I need to do in order to make a living.

And it wasn’t just that. It had been a long week: my work schedule switched around again to the insane rhythm I was keeping up at the start of this past summer. I had fifty dollars stolen from my wallet. I got dumped (over email). And it’s that time of the month.

In short, not the optimal moment for my internet to go out.

Fortunately, my heroic mother was on the line when I got off with Time Warner, and she assured me that all would be well. (And it will be: thanks to my hysteria, I have an appointment with a technician on Thursday.) She also recommended I go to sleep immediately, which was the best advice I’ve heard in ages. I tidied up my little apartment, closed all of my books and manuscript pages, and went to bed at 9:57 pm. I woke up this morning, and for once I sipped my coffee without the distraction of emails and blog reading. Instead, I gazed out my window onto Columbus Avenue, and remembered that there was a time in my life (not so long ago, really) when my early morning ritual didn’t involve frenetic internet activity. It involved a quiet appreciation of the sounds of New York City waking up.

It was really nice.

I’ll never be a person who likes to “escape.” I like being plugged into the action at every moment. Even when I travel, one of my favorite moments in the day is the moment when I have some time to write emails and check in at the office. I can’t help it; it’s just how I am. There’s pressure aplenty in our busy age to unplug and go offline and empty our minds. This is fine, but it isn’t me: I like being “on.” Still, this morning reminded me that I am capable of appreciating quiet, if not constitutionally suited to enjoy it for very long. So in a way, I’m grateful to my internet for momentarily abandoning me.

Though if my modem’s not fixed by Thursday night, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

On to the food. Recently, I saw that Brigid had made my tofu scramble, and that she really liked it (thank you, Brigid!). This reminded me of a reader request I’d recently gotten for “tofu burgers that won’t crumble and fall apart on the grill.” According to this reader, such things are a rarity. I’d never made tofu burgers before, but it sounded like an excellent challenge to me—especially since I’ve been on a burger kick lately (still haven’t tried my chickpea and sweet potato burgers? Do it!).

My goal was to find a way to bind the burgers together without making them too dense. My solution was to use a bit of whole grains (oats) and a bit of nut/seed butter (tahini). It worked better than I could have imagined. And the taste? Thanks to carrots, nutritional yeast, and a bit of nama shoyu, these were delectable. And not even a little crumbly. Here’s how it’s all done:

Gena’s Tofu Burgers (yields 4)

12 oz tofu, extra firm and pressed if possible
2/3 cup oatmeal
2 tbsp tahini
2 small carrots, grated
2 small stalks celery, chopped
¼ cup nooch
1 tbsp + 1 tsp nama shoyu, tamari, or soy sauce

1) Mix all ingredients in a food processor. You’ll want to begin by pulsing, and then let the motor go till it’s all well mixed and fairly uniform.

2) Shape into patties.

3) Heat a skillet or grill pan (or, if you don’t live in an apartment with the kitchen the size of a shoebox, heat up your grill), and grill the burgers until each side is crispy and golden brown.

4) Serve, if you’d like, with salad and avocado strips—because what isn’t made better with avocado?

These burgers were a shining example of how wonderful it is that I have readers who write in with requests for food. I’d never have thought to make them–usually, if I want a burger, I’ll make my sunshine burgers, raw or cooked—but now that I have, I imagine they’ll make a regular appearance in the CR kitchen. Thanks to all of you for continually challenging me to go outside of my routines!

And now, It’s back to work I go. I ask you all to cross your fingers and hope that I’m the proud owner of a new modem very, very soon. I already did away with my pride on the phone with Time Warner last night; I’d hate to think how pitiable I’ll get if there’s a “next time.”

xo

Conservation Burgers

Hi guys!

Thanks for showing veganism some love in the comments to my last post.

It’s Sunday. And what does that mean? It means food prep for the week to come. At some point I mean to detail for you exactly how I plan for the week ahead. But for now, I’ll give you an overview. No matter how busy I am, I always use weekends to:

• Wash, spin, prep, and bag my greens
• Prepare 2-3 salad dressings/sauces
• Prepare one large soup and freeze half
• Prepare almond milk
• Make juice — both for morning drinking, and also to incorporate into various soups (ie, carrot-avocado bisque)

The rest of my food prep, for the most part, happens during the week.

There are some weeks, though, where I know I’ll be out or coming home late every night. This is one of those weeks. Anticipating a paucity of kitchen time, I’ll take as much advantage as possible of my Sunday afternoon to prepare food that’s fridge-stable for a few days. I happened to be editing like a madwoman today, which meant many hours in my apartment — all the better for patiently overseeing some food prep! On my agenda this afternoon:

• 3 soups: celery root bisque, African yam and kale soup, and semi-raw beet soup
• baked beets
• baked yams (great for nourishing breakfasts and pre-workout snacks)
• soaking and cooking garbanzo beans
• 3 raw salad dressings (avocado cumin, Asian dressing, and zucchini dressing)
• raw zucchini hummus
• raw zucchini wraps (recipe forthcoming!)
• almond milk
• carrot/celery/romaine juice
• raw burgers with raw ketchup

Phew! What a tasty roundup.

My highlight of the day? The burgers. There are multitudes of raw burger recipes out there. Just do a simple search, and you’ll find infinite varieties, using all sorts of nut/seed bases. I’ve got my own little group of favorites, and I like to continually invent new combinations. But I always like to include carrot and celery in the base, and I like to add some parsley to the mix, too.

This particular batch of burgers captured up the spirit of my weekend aptly, since they were devised specifically to use up the dregs of my food prep. Two things I’m always sure to have on hand at the end of the weekend are almond meal (from almond milk) and juice pulp. I’ve blogged before about things I like to make with juice pulp; suffice is to say, I never like letting it go to waste. I have been known, though, to toss out my almond meal, which isn’t cool. The whole point of eating a mostly raw, plant based diet is to use up what nature gives us, and I like to think that a spirit of conservation animates my kitchen.

With that in mind, I came up with conservation burgers. Using almond and juice pulp as my base, I came up with little patties that aren’t so very different from my carrot falafel (without the Middle Eastern spices, of course). They’re super tasty and easy to prepare. I also like that they’re nut-based, but not nut-heavy; the finely ground almond meal takes second stage to the veggie pulp and fresh parsley, so the resulting burger is light and bright.

Choosing Raw Conservation Burgers (makes 6 patties)

Ingredients

1 cup almond meal (leftover from almond milk prep)
1 1/2 tightly packed vegetable juice pulp (I used carrot/romaine/celery)
1 tbsp ground flax seed
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp Spike salt free seasoning (or substitute herbs you like)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp sea salt (use personal taste)

Procedure

Blend all ingredients but parsley in a food processor till well mixed. Add water as needed; mix should be moist, but firm. Add parsley at the end and pulse to incorporate.

Dehydrate patties at 115 degrees for 2-3 hours on each side, and enjoy!

Along with these, I took my very first stab at raw ketchup. Boy oh boy — this is a new winner!

Raw Ketchup (yields one cup)

1 cup cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 heaping tbsp agave nectar
2 tbsp Bragg’s liquid aminos
1 heaping tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp water

Put all ingredients in a high speed blender and blend, starting on low and switching to high, until well blended.

Yummy, no?

These burgers will (I suspect) keep for at least four days in the fridge, so I can’t wait to enjoy them at my desk for work lunches this week!

Waste not, want not. Hope this shows you how easy it is to do fun things with food prep odds and ends.

OK guys — enjoying the last bit of the Grammys before another busy week begins. Have a great night!

xo