Souper Freak

Tonight was a very special night in the Souper Freak kitchen, featuring the tofu-browning skills of renowned sous chef Cara Textoris!

Last week, my sister Cara — who left San Francisco about eight months ago to return to our Cleveland hometown — and I made the last-minute decision to fly her out for the Fourth of July holiday. We’ve been basking in the sun, hanging out with friends, eating and drinking for the last few days of this glorious weekend. It’s been amazing — and exhausting!

Today is Cara’s last full day in town, and to make the most of our final hours, Cara, Chelsea (our cousin/sister) and I decided to lay low. We skipped out on a backyard barbecue (sorry friends!) to have some quality family down time. We went to yoga this morning (ok, that part was not exactly down time!), cleaned the house, watched movies, made ice cream sundaes, and cooked a simple, healthy and delicious Sunday dinner.

We kept it simple: veggies and tofu. Cara has been a vegetarian for seven years (for two of those she was vegan) and is an expert tofu-pan-fryer. You can see her perfectly and lightly browned tofu in the background:

We combined the tofu with broccoli, spinach, garlic, fresh ginger, and fresh basil. Cara might win the gold medal for her tofu, but I’m better at chopping the ginger:

We mixed it all together and topped it with an Asian-fusion barbecue sauce I bought at Ikeda’s several months ago. Isn’t Cara doing a great job?

We weren’t patient enough to make brown rice, so made some fast-cooking whole wheat cous-cous instead. And there you have it!

This was light and good, but the best part might have been the salad: spinach, cucumbers, broccoli slaw (from Trader Joe’s), green onions, sprouts, goat cheese, and my favorite new dressing, the light champagne vinaigrette from Trader Joe’s.

Cara sadly flies back to Ohio tomorrow — but I’ll be with her again in just two weeks when Tyler and I go to Cleveland for my best friend’s wedding! And if everything goes according to the plans we’ve been cooking up this weekend, Cara might be back to stay even sooner than we thought…..to be continued!