Lolo over on Vegan YumYum is constantly posting all of these wonderful recipes. I just now read her about page and found out she’s a knitter and 25! If she lived around my neck of the woods I would say we should hang out (totally on the basis that she is the same age and we are both pretending to be professionals when we are not, haha, oh and love of food experimentation and fiber).

I’ve tried her recipes out quite a few times and they are always well written and I always end with delicious food stuff to eat. I think my first was the strawberry rhubarb tart that I made (I used her crust recipe).

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart Baked Apple Tart Spinach Tart

Then I went on to use it for a ton of different tarts from spinach quiche style tart to apple pear tarts. Lovely! I think Jason got a little sick of all my tart making, but hey, he’s the one who enabled me by buying me a tart pan for my birthday! Speaking of, I kind of want to make an apple tart now.

Back to today though! On July 25 she posted her recipe for Smoked Miso Tofu! Amazing. I feel the same way about tofu sandwiches that she does, “I hate it when I order a tofu sandwich somewhere, and it pretty much just tastes like (or actually is) blocks of watery, plain tofu stuffed between two pieces of bread. What’s up with that? You might as well be eating a wet, mushy sponge. I love me some tofu, but you got to treat it right, you know?” So true! I really like that she doesn’t just give recipes, but that she actually lets you in on what her thought process was and how she came up with the idea:

“So I was thinking about tofu, and imagining thin slices of flavorful goodness to stuff into sandwiches. I knew wanted to use miso as the base for the flavor…. (go read her blog, her process for coming up with this is a great little read)” That’s the same way I work in the kitchen and it was nice to read.

I just knew I had to try this recipe. When I was making up the meal plan for the week on Sunday (I’m trying to start planning out the week’s meals so I don’t A: go out to eat because I’m hungry and don’t know what to make and B: Don’t just grab and eat some garbage) I decided this was the week to try it out. And today is the day in particular.

Of course, even after putting it on the meal plan and going grocery shopping I still didn’t have all the ingredients that I needed. So I improvised with what I had on hand.

Smokey Miso Tofu Altered

Loaded it all up:

Smokey Miso Tofu Altered

And here we go!
Smokey Miso Tofu Altered

I really want to just eat the whole pan up. I just took it out of the oven and it’s so good! I love the way they are just slightly crisp, but still moist. I am going to bake some bread today too and I can’t wait to try it out in a delicious sandwich!

I have some other foodie type stuff to post about, but I’ll try to spread it out a bit over this week. (the strawberry glaze and another new recipe I tried out).

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Make sure to enter the CRAFT:08 Give Away here or on Craft Leftovers and if you don’t feel like it, you can go pick up an issue of CRAFT:08 because it’s on the news stands today! Even though I have an issue already for myself, Jason and I are going to go down to Borders and pick up an issue to get all messy when trying out all the crafty goodness. OH and you should subscribe right now if you have been thinking about it. Right now it’s only 29.95 with a coupon code (link) A great deal considering it’s $15 an issue, it’s like you are getting 2 issues for free!

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I have been walking on air lately. Especially since yesterday. Not only do I have my first published work now out, I also have received a ton of mail (by a ton I mean 7 letters and post cards so far). I went on Friday to check and there was a letter and a post card, then I went yesterday and there was 5 letters and post cards! I kind of teared up reading them. They were so sweet and nice and it really renewed my spirits as far as Craft Leftovers goes and my decision to not get a job and to keep scraping by. It’s been tough to resist the allure of just getting a job and being a fat cat and this really helped. Then with the give away on the blog I have received so many nice comments and feedback about CL and it’s really helping me to get some great ideas and be reassured that I’m on the right track.

I was so used to getting constant feed back from being in a studio with 5 other artists and not to mention professors and other random passer-byers, oh and my crafty buddies carolyn and kelly that I used to run every idea by, plus the yarn shop where I worked and all the great woman there and the show and tells. It’s been really hard working in a vacuum. Less feedback, less positive words that what I’m doing is worth while. The feed back from comments and emails are really all the encouragement I get and I really need it to keep doing what I’m doing. Does that make sense?

I am taking a week trip to Dekalb/chicago and so I get to spend a week with my crafty buddies and visiting my friends and old professors. Just two weeks from now! I’ve been working every day from 8 am to midnight pretty much (with random bike rides to the store, driving a manual car lessons, cooking, and cleaning up) to prepare for leaving for a week. I have so many deadlines (some that I cant mention) in August. Craft Leftovers Monthly is one of the huge ones. It has to be all made and packed up and ready to go out by next friday so Jason can send it for me the following monday! Geesh. It makes me immensely happy. I love working on all of these things. It has been intense and fun and good.

And with that, I’m going to get back work on Craft Leftovers Monthly.

Have a good day!

Kristin