Baked tofu with homemade pumpkin cardamom sauce:

Slice and blot (with paper towels) extra firm tofu and bake at 425 for 20-30 mintues depending on your oven, flipping half way throught. You can also “marinate” your tofu in oil or any yummy sauce you like. BBQ is delish. For this recipe, I bake it plain so that it may be dipped in this yummy pumpkin sauce.

Meanwhile, make pumpkin sauce:

1/4 cup pumpkin pecan butter (or TJ’s pumpkin butter)
cardamom and cumin seeds (about a tsp each)
one clove garlic
pinch of ginger powder (optional)
honey, agave or brown sugar to your taste
soy milk creamer to thicken
water to thin if needed

Begin by frying seeds until fragrent in a non stick skillet
Remove from heat and mix with crushed clove of garlic.
Add pumpkin to skillet and stir until warmed throughout, add other spices and seasonings, and then add the fryed seed mixture.
Stir in soy milk creamer and sweetener to taste.
Drizzle over baked tofu, or use as dipping sauce! Delicious on sweet potatoes too.

Sweet Potato Fries:

Peel potatoes if desired, otherwise slice sweet potatoes into wedges.
“Paint” them with olive oil using a pastry brush, you can be quite generous with oil here, as this is the main fat source of the meal and will help in the absorption of valuable nutrients. (you can see my technique for “painting” oil here)
Season with sea salt + garlic powder + red pepper flakes or chili powder

Bake at 500 degrees for 15-20 minutes, flipping half way through.
(Or, if you are baking your potatoes and tofu at the same time, put the oven to 450 and flip tofu when browned on the bottom. Baking time will vary, so keep a close watch!)

Last but not least, MYVERYFIRSTKITCHEN wouldn’t be what it is without a ginormous salad:

Spinach + mushrooms + broccoli + tomatoes + yellow bell pepper + favorite salad dressing (honey mustard for me.)

Perfectly satisfying deliciousness of protein + startch (with some healthy EVOO fat!) + vegggggies. There is even room for a cupcake!

I have been reading tons of food blogs now for about 6 months and decided it was time that I myself take the “plunge”. I am mostly going to use my blog to show you guys my eats while being a full time student, working part time at a Pilates studio after school and finding time to run and do Pilates! I hope you enjoy. So I actually just returned yesterday from a weekend away in the most beautiful place ever!! (more on that later) When we got home (ROAD TRIP) I had about 45 minutes to make something to eat as I was quite hungry and KNEW that working for four hours while being exhausted would make me ravenous!

So, on the drive home I snacked on a spinach flavor Flat Out Wrap, plain (can you tell i was getting hungry….?)

Well soon enough we arrived home and because I was SO hangry I grabbed one of my trail mix cookies I made last week to tide me over while I chopped my veggies!

These were inspired by Oh She Glows

Then it was looking in my fridge for something…anything! Well, I found half of an onion, part of a rotting zucchini (in a Debbie Meyer Green Bag, I thought these would help!), some celery (also on it’s last leg) as well as some hummus and feta. Well I got to chopping and decided the hummus would make a great base for a flat out wrap pizza! Especially because my wrap flavor of spinach. I decided on a Greek theme for today’s pre-work meal.
Layer 1: about 2 tablespoons of hummus. (Oh, and i decided to just do half of a pizza b/c i ate all the wrap coming home and didn’t want to get burned out when this is one of the only things left in my kitchen!)

Then I added the veggies and spices! (zucchini, onion, red pepper flakes, basil, thyme, garlic powder, and Mediterranean sea salt! I am all out of oregano and this saved the day!) Oh and feta cheese of course, about 2 tablespoons. After being in the oven for about 10 minutes, and then 10 min again because my Feta wouldn’t brown:( I got this…

upclose

With the rest of my yummy’s

Celery, a huge tomato and hummus for dipping!

Like my zucchini “pepperoni’s?” okay maybe a stretch…. Anyway, this was very good AND filling, I knew i wouldn’t be getting hungry at work! The only problem was the hummus got so slippery and gooey that the tortilla wasn’t very firm or pizza-ish like it normally is with cheese. Next time I think I would toast the wrap in the oven first to firm it up a tiny bit then add all the toppings. Thoughts??

Okay I will be back later to share with you my post work dinner (8:30pm!!) and stay tuned for my amazing eats and adventures from this last weekend in that oh so beautiful place!

Love,
MVFK

hmm…maybe I need a new nickname, MVFK doesn’t work as well as all of your abbreviated names out there Oh well! “see” you soon!!