This recipe, based on one from Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers, is absolutely fabulous.  It uses one pan and one bowl, and very very little hands-on time. It tastes delicious, and looks like anything but a rushed weekday meal.

It completes me.

I’ve tweaked it a little bit from the original recipe – theirs serves 2, mine serves an army of construction workers my family of five with a little to spare for lunches the next day. ie YOU WILL NEED A VERY BIG BOWL. I also added toasted almonds (though forgot to add when I photographed this time! Bad blogger, BAD!) and baked sweet potato. Now, I know what you’re thinking – baking the sweet potato involves an extra step of planning, and sounds less convenient for a weekday meal, and what the hell is this because I promised you meals in about 40 minutes and Chinese take-out would have been here by now. But I’ll show you how to knock it out FAST, just wait.

Plus, I always make my coconut rice in the Instant Pot, which is absolutely foolproof and lets me ignore it until I’m ready to eat … but you can always make it on the stovetop, too.

One more thing to note! This is by far the easiest (as in non-fussy, non-time-consuming) and most reliable way I have to make quick and delicious tofu. It completely bypasses any pressing or prolonged marinating – let me say that again! No tofu press, no having to make the marinade ahead of time, and waiting for it to be ready while your kids howl in the background and you think up ways to have me killed. NO PREPWORK.

*sigh* …

It had me at “hello.”

 

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And here is the recipe for coconut rice …

 

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NOTES: There are many ways to cook a sweet potato, and not all of them were created equally. If you just want to set something going and walk away from it for a while, the oven is great (400 degrees for 60 minutes should do ya, since we’re going for “cooked through” but not “soft and fluffy”). But for those of us who, more likely, just forgot we had to cook the damn thing until we reread the recipe and noticed the “baked sweet potato” listed as an ingredient, there are more efficient ways.

For just one large sweet potato, I truly don’t feel the need to fire up the Instant Pot (though this works great when you’re doing several at once) – in the time it takes to pressurize the pot, you could be done if you use your microwave. Prick a large sweet potato with a fork a bunch of times, and wrap it in a damp paper towel. Throw it in the microwave on high for four minutes, flip it, then do another three minutes (again, going for “cooked”, not “super soft and mushy”). Bam. Next ingredient?

 

[fancy_header type=”2″ subtitle=”Week One”]How Meal Planning Helped Me Save My Sanity[/fancy_header]