In my glee at becoming a 1950's vegan housewife, revelling in meat and potatoes and homemade pies (Did you see the creamed spinach? I don't know where this nostalgia comes from, I don't think I have ever even had actual chicken-fried steak), I completely forgot how we normally eat. It was a delicious return to normal this evening as we ate our Chinese long beans and tofu with pineapple sauce (I can't entirely abandon the 50's housewife aesthetic, I think a sweet pineapple sauce is an appropriate little nod to the era.)
Those are the long beans home from the Hollywood Farmer's Market. I seared the tofu with a little oil in a hot cast iron skillet while I made the sauce:
(These measurements are approximate and to taste, so try it.)
1/3 cup pineapple juice
2 Tbsp. low sodium soy sauce
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. seasoned rice vinegar
1 serrano chili, finely diced
an inch of ginger, grated
1 tsp. cornstarch
Mix the sauce ingredients while the tofu sizzles. Remove from pan. Add the long beans. Cover for about 3 minutes. Uncover and saute for a minute. Add the tofu and the sauce. Allow the sauce to thicken and the tofu to absorb some of the flavors for about a minute. At this point, I stirred in some green onion because I had it. We ate it over rice with a sprinkle of black sesame seeds. Because I love to garnish.
