Sweet and Sour Vegetables and home style salad

Sweet and Sour Stirfry

Mum has been following the posts on my blog and was very excited when I said I would like to blog about our dinner last night. She said she had the perfect dish (ie. a new dish that I had not had before). So we set about cooking this dish together. The recipe comes from this awesome cookbook that mum bought from the New Internationalist - Quick and Easy - Vegetarian Recipes from around the World for the Western Kitchen. Unfortunately it is out of publication and I have been unable to get my own copy (very very sad about this). Due to the fact that you (or I) are not going to be able to run out and get a copy of this awesome book I will put our version of the recipe (we have changed a few things).

It was really yummy - I haven't really ventured into many sweet and sour dishes - but I really like this - and it was really easy - I chopped the vegetables as I needed to add them (to reduce the total time needed). We had this on the table really quickly.

Sweet and Sour Vegetables
Serves:4
Time: 20mins

600g chopped vegetables (we used 1 red and 1 green capsicum, 1/4 cauliflower, 2 carrots, 1/2 zucchini, 1 stick celery, 1/4 cup cabbage, 5 mushrooms and 1/2 cup pineapple - other possibiliteis could be baby sweetcorn, bok choi, bean sprouts, snowpeas).
1 onion - sliced into cresent moons
4 cloves garlic - minced
1/2 - 1 red chili - deseeded and chopped finely
450g extra firm tofu - cubed and marinated in a marinade (we were lazy and just used some tamari).

Sauce
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp agave syrup
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp tomato sauce (we used Muir Glen Tomato Ketchup)
2 tbsp pineapple juice
1/2 tsp cornflour

1. Saute onion in oil or broth until it begins to soften. Then add garlic and stir fry for another minute.
2. Add the vegetables that will take the longest to cook (like carrots and capsicum). Stirfry these for 3-4 mins.
3. Add the chili and the rest of the vegetables, stiring until they are cooked.
4. Mix the sauce ingredients together and pour over vegetables. Add tofu and stir to coat everything in sauce. Leave for a few minutes so that the flavours can sink in.
5. Serve over rice or noodles (we served it over thin rice noodles)

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There are many different things that are exclusive to my parents home (where I spent the first 18 years of my life). One of these is the Vita Mix. I remember my brother and I convincing our parents to buy a vita mix at an Organic Gardening Festival in Penguin when I was about 10years old. I think we used the line that it would help us to eat lots of fruits.
Since then - every morning we would share a fruit smoothie (with banana, orange, apple, kiwi, avocado, and other fruits when in season - eg. pears, pineapples, berries etc etc).
Also - and this is a little more unusal - mum and dad would make themselve a whizzed salad. This is because dad's teath make it difficult for him to eat really crunchy vegetables. I used to frown upon this green smoothie - but now I really love sharing it with them when I come home - it tastes surprisingly good - it usually includes - beetroot tomato, carrot, different types of salad greenery, celery, parsley, capsicum, cucumber and a little bit of salt water. So as I am home - I thought I would document the making of the whizzed salad. It can't be called a green smoothie as the beetroot makes it pink at the moment.

The salad before it is whizzed.

The salad after it is whizzed up.