Two Sisters Takeout

Alessa and I started our day with a brunch of honey whole wheat pancakes, the leftover thick cut bacon and a side of pink grapefruit. No fabulous recipes there we took a few shortcuts.

However after a day of cleaning and organizing our new space we decided to try out a recipe from one of my many Weight Watchers cookbooks. If you know me that is no surprise, if not you will soon realize that Weight Watchers friendly dishes will be a recurring theme here.

Today's entry required we break out the chopsticks:

Thai Noodles with Tofu

3/4 lb reduced fat firm tofu
1/2 lb rice stick noodles
6 TBS ketchup
3 TBS Thai fish sauce
2 TBS packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp chili-garlic paste
4 tsp peanut oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 scallions, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 TBS chopped unsalted peanuts
2 cups bean sprouts
Lime wedges

Personal touches:

We already had Lo Mein noodles in the cupboard to use in place of the rice noodles.

There is never any ketchup in my house, so we used a combo of mild Chili Sauce and hot Chili Sauce. We wanted to use even amounts of each, but only had just over 1 TBS of the mild. Needless to say our finished dishe had a nice kick to it. We also added a red bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch strips, it was sitting in the fridge and needed to be used.

If you have never cooked with tofu, it is necessary to 'prep' the tofu by removing as much liquid as possible.

1. Place the tofu between 2 flat plates. Weight the top plate with a heavy can until the tofu bulges at the sides but does not split. Let stand about 30 minutes drain liquid off the plate. Cut into 1/2 inch cubes.
2. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook until tender, 6-8 minutes. Drain the noodles and rinse under cols running water; drain again and set aside.
3. Combine the Chili Sauce, Fish Sauce, brown sugar and chili-garlic paste in a small bowl; set aside. Heat 2 tsp of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add the eggs and cook, stirring occasionally, just until set, about 2 minutes. Transfer the eggs to bowl.
4. Heat the remaining 2 tsp of oil in the skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, just until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tofu and cook, stirring occasionally, until hot, about 3 minutes. Add the scallions, cooked aggs and red pepper, cook, stirring about 1 minute. Add the noodles and the sauce; cook tossing just until heated through, about 3 minutes.

At this point the original instructions are to transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with peanuts and serve at once with the bean sprouts and lime wedges.
We opted to add the bean sprouts as the last step in the cooking, and toss just to heat them through, about 1 minute. Then we transfered it to a serving dish and dished it out.

This dish is a definite keeper, as I mentioned it did have a bit of a kick to it, so next time we will split the Chili Sauce evenly 3 TBS of each the hot and the mild.

You will have to forgive us, we are new at this and once again did not think about pictures until it was too late, trust us it was pretty.