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The mgic ingredients: rotini, garlic confit and tofu. That's it.
The rotini is a good shape for the three wee ones to handle and eat all by themselves, which is important to them and frees up my hands for other things, like feeding myself or wiping up spilled whatever or fetching whatever or rounding up whomever.
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The final product!
As the pasta was cooking, I threw in some frozen mixed veggies to cook alongside. This was coated in sauce in the same pot as the pasta cooked in so I consider that a one-pot meal. The sauce was whirred in my food processor so I'm just going to pretend that that didn't happen and there's only one pot to clean. But I don't mind an extra dish.
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The sauce after it whirred around for a minute or so.
I think this garlic confit thing is here to stay in my kitchen. I used both the garlic and the oil for this dish. Dee-licious! The Big Kid asked for it in his lunch tomorrow.
Rotini with tofu alfredo sauce
inspired by Spark Recipes
made enough to serve 4
6 oz (1/2 pkg) soft or silk tofu, plain
2 garlic cloves (I used the ones in my confit)
1 Tbsp EVOO (I used the oil from my confit)
1 Tbsp milk of choice (I used Silk)
S&P to taste (this took a surprising amount of salt and pepper)
- blend sauce ingredients in food processor, magic bullet or blender
Toss with 4 cups pasta shape of your choice. (4 cups before it was cooked) You can have up to 1 cup of vegetables cooked with the pasta (I recommend broccoli, peas, carrots, sweet potato or fresh beans, asparagus in season.)
This version is a vegan one, you can add up to 1/8 cup parmesean and 1/8 cup romano cheese if you like, or more to taste.
This sounds delicious Rana. I'm interested in what you do with tofu as we are eating more meatless meals. My concern, however, is that there doesn't seem to be enough protein in 1/2 pkg of tofu to feed an entire family and have leftovers. Of course, I have no idea what you ate for the rest of the day. This isn't a criticism by any means... I'm just interested to know how you balance carbs, proteins, etc.
ReplyDeleteMaureen
Thanks for bringing this up, it's a valid concern. This day, we'd had a snack of whole grain toast with peanut butter on it and apples. The kids ate a lot of it so when supper time came a short time later, they weren't very hungry so I knew they wouldn't eat much of it. The 1/2 pkg fed The Big Kid and I and a few mouthfuls to the middle ones and the wee one. The Man was not home for supper. The Big Kid's lunch serving is about 1 cup (that's the size of the container he brings) and he gets lots of other stuff in his lunchbox. They weren't big servings because of the hearty snack an hour before.
DeleteI try to ensure each meal and snack have a relative balance based on the Canada Food Guide so if a kid doesn't want to eat a meal, I know they've had a balance with the rest of the stuff they've consumed. I used to and would still like to, have charts to check off how much has gone down their gullet of the food groups, but there are too many of us to be that careful. And my new (since the middle kids became toddlers) theory is that they eat when they want to. Some days, they'll eat hardly anything, then they'll eat like monsters for a few days. I just have to let it go and as long as they're being offered good things, they'll eat good things. So far, so good, for us. Other families don't have it as easy (picky eaters, allergies or medical conditions).