What a crazy week! The mixture of work, family get-togethers, events to attend for work, seeing friends, running, blogging, and keeping up with life has certainly produced quite the whirlwind of a week! In my whirlwind, I managed to get a little behind in my weekly GCF recipe, but fret not folks, it is about to delivered to you right now..
I was thinking while running about what I wanted to do for this week's GCF and how I had primarily paired cheeses, bread, fruits, vegetables, oils, nuts, compotes, and the such but I had not yet paired cheese with one of my favorite sources of protein -- tofu! You might be thinking why isn't she pairing meats with cheeses, well folks that is because I do not eat meat...I do eat fish and although some people find fish and cheese pairings to be bizarre or not successful over the course of my musings here, I aim to prove you wrong that there are excellent fish and cheese pairings. Well enough of that, lets get on to this week's Health Nuts GCF.
I know some people find the consistency of tofu to be unappealing and my opinion on that is either they haven't had fresh tofu like you can get at EN Japanese brasserie, it melts in your mouth. Needless to say for our purposes here, you don't want a melt in your mouth tofu, you want a firm tofu because it will hold up to the sandwich and the cheese more successfully than its silken soft sibling. The cool thing about firm store bought tofu is that it can pick up flavors very easily, it's somewhat like a blank canvas. If you are feeling like you want to infuse your tofu with your own flavors, you can grill it with some olive oil, herbs, and garlic, OR roast it with the same ingredients and your blank canvas will suddenly be full of flavor! However, if you are feeling uber lazy, you can always buy already "flavored" tofu from the supermarket. I have actually just discovered a new great brand of Tuscan herb tofu from Fairway, soft yet firm, full of flavor, not too processed (sometimes flavored tofu from the market becomes too processed in terms of taste), and all around delish! The cool thing about this specific tofu is its flavors do not overwhelm you so it can be paired with a lot of other tastes.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of this week's GCF, lets just go over a few of the health benefits of tofu:
1. It's good for heart health - the soy protein and isoflavones are great cholesterol fighters.
2. Good for muscles and energy level with the high levels of protein.
3. The tofu's isoflavones become a form of estrogen in the body which has been found to be beneficial to women in both peri-menopause and menopause. The same isoflavones also help prevent prostate cancer in men.
4. The dietary calcium in tofu also promotes bone health.
So for ease's sake, as GCF recipes are meant to be fast and easy after a long week, we will use my new discovery of Tuscan herb tofu as our tofu star for our health nuts GCF. Along with tofu, we will use Beemster Reduced Fat Aged Gouda Cheese, nutty, buttery, caramelly and delish, but lower in fat that an its counterparts but just as delish and lighter in taste, in an excellent way. To showcase these two elements, I like to sandwich them between two nice slices of Eli's health bread and top them with some crunchy bean sprouts and alfalfa sprouts and mesclun greens. Then to finish off the sandwich, I like to doctor and then use a traditional Japanese sesame sauce, used for my green tea noodles typically. To doctor the sauce, I like to add some chives, ground ginger and a little bit of garlic so you get a sweet, savory, Asian feel that will complement the other flavors perfectly and round out the sandwich. When toasted, you will have a lovely, flavorful sandwich that is light, delish, and really good for you. This is perfect with Geyser Peak's Sauvignon Blanc from the Russian River Valley -- a light wine with flavors of lime, citrus, lychee, grass, and gooseberries, perfect for our health nuts GCF on this lovely sunny day.
Enjoy ladies and gents!
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