Here's the tofu dish I enigneered. Drain and press tofu, marinate lightly in honey dijon dressing, dress in an Italian seasoned flour (eg., salt, peppa, oregano, parsley, thyme), then fry in a skillet with oil but be sure to scramble it, in other words break it down into small chunks with your weapon of choice and get it nice and crispy. To the side I sauteed up a bunch of white onions and garlic, threw in some wheat penne pasta, and added my lemony-creamy sauce. Combine the tofu and creamy pasta, top with sliced sage (the only freshy we basically have left right now) and serve.
As if 11 hours of conducting the PM food orchesta wasn't fun enough Raul told me about a wild and edible mushroom presenation early on in the day, and he insisted we make some h'orderves. Come the end of my shift he and I got to work. I pulled out my portabella pate and cracker platter I made at noon during our break, and he showed me what he had. We still had to top his toasts with his mush blend.
Here was what he designed... mushroom mouse on a puff pastry topped with a snowpea bean sprout head. We both laughed, asking ourselves if we're still in the McMurdo kitchen. Perhaps we should do a fine dining expo every week and bring the real talent out. Wait a minute, we're both wintering at Pole (or so I hope, I haven't got word back just yet). If that goes down, boy is that station in for some goodies. We might not have fresh portabellas there, but we'll have mush base ;)
Here's the platter I had fun with. I got so much mush pate leftover that I'm hoping that on Saturday the bakery can use it as a spread for the pizza day. Nick, discard the tomato sauce for a few pizzas, use the mush pate instead, top with onions, wild mushrooms, and lots of feta cheese ;)
Here we are. Double trouble.
Here's Kira to the left rocking out with us right before her talk. Kira has spent many months in New Zealand and elsewhere harvesting mushrooms, cooking them, working farmers, etc. She's a really cool down-to-Earth gal.
Here's the final product.
The literally ate every bite, we had to do seconds.
And here is Kira giving the talk. I learned a bit about the types of mushrooms, which taste good and which don't, and the best cooking method... drop in butter on a hot skillet, sautee and serve haha. I dig it.