Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumWhat's for Dinner, Tues., Feb. 11, 2025
I've been playing around with food prep using this book called Build-A-Bowl. It shows you how to combine grains, vegetables, protein, a sauce and a garnish to make a balanced meal that's easy, once you get your options cooked (like having soba noodles or quinoa in the cooked state on hand, for example).
Example of a Buddha Bowl or "Build A Bowl." (not my pic)
Mine for tonight consists of crispy tofu cubes, soba noodles, asparagus and thinly sliced mushrooms, seasoned, and cooked in the air fryer. My sauce is the sesame sauce I keep raving about. I made up a fresh supply last night (and have also started ordering sesame seeds in bulk). I combined organic chicken and vegetable broth and made it a big bowl with a soup base.
I like my tofu cubes crispy, so I tossed them in cornstarch:
In the first photo, I cut my cubes from a block of drained tofu. In the second, I toss them in cornstarch, and in the third, I am crisping them on very low heat. This takes a long time, but I just put my electric burner on 1.5 and check in with it every 10", set by the timer.
Then I combine it all, and dinner's ready.
For dessert, I have sandwich hazelnut cookies from Aldi. I'll put one in my air fryer and warm it slightly to have with tea.
p.s. if you go to Pinterest and put in "buddha bowls" or "build a bowl," you'll see lots of pictures of interesting food combinations.

happybird
(5,370 posts)Im making chili. Its snowing, having a big bowl of chili feels right. The ground chuck is defrosting now so Ill start in about an hour.
Jiffy cornbread.
Sweet Tea
Yonnie3
(18,510 posts)TJ is making them. I don't know the recipe, but I know there are beans and spinach as well as the chicken in them.
Marthe48
(20,377 posts)They both make flavorful bowls with varied ingredients. I think they enjoy trying to outdo each other
Today, I roasted a piece of pork shoulder roast, made mashed potatoes and sauteed mushrooms and onions. I also made some stuffed mushrooms.
I wanted something sweet, so Imade some no bake peanut butter bars. I've made them before and they are a lot like Reese Cups. I made a half recipe, and divided the mix into muffin cups. The oven was still warm, so I chunked up some dark chocolate, laid some on each portion and let them melt in the oven, then spread and cooled. Really glad I didn't make a whole batch.
Leftovers tomorrow.
Stay warm and cozy!
Emile
(33,804 posts)Chocolate pudding with a teaspoon of cool whip before bedtime.
Good Evening
NJCher
(39,551 posts)Are you really able to hold that Cool Whip to one tsp at night?
When you read me saying I have one square of chocolate planned for dessert, that is your cue to
Emile
(33,804 posts)made up for us to eat. Seriously, I only add one big teaspoon of cool whip to my plastic container.
La Coliniere
(1,354 posts)Stir-fried in Miyokos butter and olive oil: chopped celery, onions and minced garlic until soft. Added flour to make a thick roux which was incrementally thinned out by using hot vegetable broth. When the right consistency was reached I added a ton of thinly sliced white and cremini mushrooms and some reconstituted dried Polish black mushrooms. The mushrooms are done quickly. Then salt, pepper and chopped parsley. At the end I add oat milk to give it more richness. Served with toasted baguette. Cheers!