School Trip-No Bento

The children at my daughter's school are all walking to the cinema today to see the Karate Kid movie. After they will be treated to a slice of pizza and a drink. Suffice it to say I will have a hungry kid coming home today. I would have packed a snack bento, but they don't want the kids bringing anything today.

Last night I made a nice stir fry using tofu that was getting close to its use by date, asparagus from our vegetable box, the last of the baby corn which had seen better days and the dregs of a bottle of teriyaki sauce. I don't know why I bought it since making it is pretty easy. Paige ate the asparagus! Every bit of it.. two helpings even. I swear I could put sauce on a monkey turd and she would eat it. No matter, she ate a green vegetable without any grumbling and for that I am quite thankful.

There is a trick to using asparagus. Actually a couple of tricks. One is to not do that snap thing to remove the "woody" ends. You waste a lot of vegetable that way. What you need to do is cut off a small bit of the ends with a knife then peel the thicker bits to reveal the tender white insides. Then you cook the ends first and just before they are done, put in the flower ends. No more over cooked tips!

The tofu was really simple and the family likes is a lot. First you squeeze moisture out of extra firm tofu. Do NOT use silken or it simply won't work. Now, I have heard that you should freeze it first, or set it on an inverted plate with wads of paper towels on top and some sort of weight. I don't do any of these things any more. I find that pressing it for a little bit with paper towels works just fine. Then I cut it into little cubes and stir fry them in some oil until they are crispy all around. This is what makes my family like it, the crispness.

Now, to figure out what is for dinner...