No more chicken noodle soup for me.

Gainesville is a 45 minute – 1 hour drive from Athens, GA. For various reasons I ended up spending a fair amount of time in Athens, though I never did learn to find my way around the town.

One of my favorite things in Athens was The Grit. The “indie-rock Moosewood.” One of my favorite things at The Grit was The Golden Bowl: browned tofu cubes sauteed with soy sauce and nutritional yeast served over brown rice. Now, you can get vegetables and in your Golden Bowl, but I always preferred them on the side, leaving a perfectly beige, perfectly delicious mix of the best tofu you have ever eaten, brown rice, and cheese. Umami and yet just bland enough without being boring. A perfect comfort food.

After I moved outside of easy driving distance to Athens, I was compelled to figure out how to make a Golden Bowl at home because the meal is an addiction. I succeeded. My home-made Golden Bowl hit the spot.

A couple of years later, The Grit published their cookbook. Sure enough, I had nailed the recipe and technique except for that second frying of the tofu that creates a little extra crispiness.

I make mine with tamari instead of soy sauce, and with mozzarella cheese. It is what I’ve been eating for the past couple of days. With veggies on the side, of course.

Here is the recipe:
The Golden Bowl

• 15 oz. extra-firm tofu
• Vegetable oil for sautéing the tofu
• Tamari, to taste
• Nutritional yeast, to taste
• 2 cups cooked short-grain brown rice
• Butter, to taste

• Cut the tofu into cubes smaller than playing dice. Lightly oil a nonstick skillet and place over high heat. Allow the oil to heat slightly, then add the tofu. Sauté, tossing with a nonmetal spatula, until evenly and lightly golden brown, about 10 to 15 minutes.
• Sprinkle lightly with tamari (I use about a tablespoon here) and sauté briefly to further brown the tofu. Remove from the skillet, draining and discarding any excess fluid. Wipe the skillet dry.
• Add a tiny bit of new vegetable oil to the same pan and place over high heat. Once the oil is very hot, add the tofu again.
• Sauté, tossing with a nonmetal spatula almost constantly, until the tofu is nicely browned. Sprinkle with tamari to taste (another tablespoon for me). Sauté, tossing until the tofu and pan are pretty much dry.
• Sprinkle liberally with nutritional yeast, coating the tofu cubes and all the vegetables. Tossing vigorously, sauté for a few seconds. Repeat this step once and remove from the heat.
• Place 1 cup of hot cooked short-grain brown rice in each of two bowls. Add some butter to taste and stir into the rice to melt. Top each bowl of rice with 1/2 of the tofu. Sprinkle liberally with shredded mozzarella cheese, stir well to mix and melt the cheese.
• Devour.

Anyway, last night at Il Palio, I ate:

• Local Bibb Lettuces – Oven Dried Tomatoes, Radishes and Parmesan Dressing
• Bucatini all’Amatriciana – House Cured Guanciale, Onion and Spicy Tomato Sauce
• Bailey’s Crème Brulée – Bailey’s, Kahlua, Vanilla Bean Custard

The crème brulée was probably the best I ever remember eating, but the rest was just ok.

And I actually got ill when I got home. Blech.

Tonight is a much more down-home night.

Actually the truth is that I’ve had too much going on to feel like I can stop and figure out what to cook at home, so I don’t have a plan and I don’t have supplies. Sometimes it seems too overwhelming to think about what to eat for the next week and I just blank on it and ignore it. Then nights like tonight happen.

I had a bag of pre-soaked kidney beans in the freezer, so I put those in a pot, covered them with water, brought that to a boil, covered the pot and stuck it in the oven at 250°F for 45 minutes while I made a phone call to a friend and folded my laundry.

When the beans were cooked, I drained them. Diced an onion. Sauteed it in veg oil until it was soft. Threw in the beans. Threw in a couple of cups or so of mixed frozen vegetables, a frozen tablespoon lump of tomato paste,* and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Added some salt, a healthy amount of dried oregano, and a bit of red pepper flakes. Cooked until everything was hot and cooked through.

I cooked a couple of potatoes in the microwave.

Then a big pile of the mush from the stove was piled on top of a potato and that whole mess was covered with shredded “Italian style” cheese, and popped back into the microwave to melt the cheese.

I’m eating it now as I type. Actually it isn’t terrible. It isn’t good, but I’ve thrown together much worse.

And so it goes. After dinner I’ll make a menu for the next few days. And a grocery list.

I’m thinking some sort of curried winter squash. I have a surfeit of coconut milk and basmati rice. Yum.

* I freeze the leftover tomato paste when a recipe doesn’t use a whole can. I wrap individual lumps in plastic wrap and put all the lumps in a storage bag in the freezer.