Tofu Red Curry

I turn 40 at the end of this week and about a year ago I drew up a list of 40 things that I wanted to do before I wave goodbye to my 30s. Some were new experiences and others were things I wanted to achieve. I love food, so there were a few eating and cooking tasks on the list, of which one was 'make tofu taste like food'. I've only cooked with tofu once or twice and it's been not great but I gave it another go and was actually very pleased with the results.

I think the key is to have patience when it comes to pressing the tofu before cooking. It makes the tofu former and less likely to disintegrate in the pan.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 pack cauldron tofu

1 onion, sliced

1 tin coconut milk

4 tbsp Thai red curry paste

2 tbsp oil

Salt/pepper

Any other veg you fancy

* take the tofu out of the packet and drain off the liquid. Wrap the tofu loosely in several layers of kitchen towel, sandwich between 2 chopping boards or similar and weigh down with a couple of heavy cookbooks. Leave of at least 15 minutes

* unwrap the tofu and cut into strips or cubes. Season

* heat the oil in a large pan and fry the tofu in batches making sure it is fairly crispy on all sides

* add the onion and any other veg (I used some sliced green beans) and curry paste and fry for a few more minutes before adding the coconut milk

* simmer for 15-20 minutes and serve with rice

Pearl barley with sardines

This was a bit of an experiment loosely based on a recipe I saw somewhere which called for mackerel. Didn't have any mackerel, but I did have a tin of sardines.

Ingredients (serves 1)

80g pearl barley
1/2 onion, diced
Tin of sardines (mine were in tomato sauce, but I rinsed them)
1 egg
1/2 veg stock cube

* make up the stock cube with 400ml water
* fry the onion for a couple of minutes, then add the barley and stock
* simmer gently for around 35 minutes or until the barley is soft and the stock has mostly been absorbed
* meanwhile, hard boil the egg and if necessary rinse and halve the sardines

Eat!

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