Recipe Review: Takeout Fake Out Vegetable Tofu Lo Mein and A Personal Fail

018I found this recipe via Pinterest (where else?) a few weeks ago and have been meaning to try it out. It sounded easy (it is) and quick (it is) and delicious (it is).

You can find the full recipe here at Hello Little Home. I took a spin through this very pretty blog, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it housed many vegetarian recipes that look really great. See, there’s a good reason to be addicted to Pinterest!

As I said, this dish was easy to put together, and would be a great go-to for a fast meal to feed a family on a busy weekday.

So, while I’m quite proud of this find and in general, how my take on this recipe turned out, I realized shortly after finishing up cooking that I ended up with two personal fails:

1) I said I was going to try to cut back on my soy intake because I had been eating so much pre-made food that is stuffed with soy … this recipe calls for tofu, which is, of course, soy. I also went and tried to add edamame … which is soy before it is turned into tofu or anything else. Speaking of edamame …010

2) I tried to improvise by adding edamame to my version of the recipe. Unfortunately, never having prepared edamame before, I didn’t realize the outer pod was well … fuzzy and tough. I thought I could just cook them up like regular beans and eat them, pod and all … nope nope nope nope nope. Can’t. Won’t do that again.

Otherwise, the recipe was really delicious, and like I said, really easy and quick to make. I improvised with the veggies because I didn’t have the cole slaw mix that was called for. I did, however, have plenty of – you guessed it – zucchini (who doesn’t have plenty of that this time of year?) and I shredded some carrots and used the onion and broccoli called for.

From what I see, it isn’t important which vegetables you use, because what really makes this dish is the sauce, which is a simple mix of vegetable broth, soy sauce (yep, more soy), sriracha, rice wine vinegar, sesame seed oil and corn starch. The 006flavor combination is savory and smoky with a bit of a bite from the sriracha. So good!

Oh, and be sure to take the time to drain and really fry up the tofu well. I loved the texture, and crisping up the tofu was key in having it kind of “catch” the sauce and hold on to it.

I recommend this recipe highly.

But not edamame in the pod. Don’t do that, unless you know what you’re doing and how to get the pods softer, haha!

So, after this soy-laden dish, I’m going to have to make up another no-soy meal here …. so off I go!