Roasted Red Pepper Stromboli & General Tso's Tofu

The Food Nanny
June 9&10, 2009
Meal 1: Roasted Red Pepper Stromboli, Grilled Greens Salad, Rhubarb Crisp
· Warm the stromboli in the oven at 350° until hot – about 10-15 minutes. · Toss the salad ingredients and dress lightly if you like, the olive oil and garlic that they are grilled with may be just right for you.
· Warm the crisp in the oven during dinner and enjoy for desert. It should be bubbling a little at the edges.

Meal 2: General Tso’s Tofu, Stirfried Hakuri Turnips &Garlic Scapes, Fried Rice Salad
· Serve the rice at room temp or warm it in a skillet with a little oil.
· Get the pan hot and add a little oil. Stir fry the turnips/scapes for a minute or two to heat through. Remove to a plate.
· Heat the pan again and add more oil. Tip in the broccoli and tofu. Stir fry for about 2 minutes, then vigorously shake the sauce and pour over the tofu. Allow the sauce to thicken for a minute or so and serve immediately.
Local Notes:
'Scape from Urbana
I told you we would have some more scapes. I am sorry to have to cut them for your meals, they are such beautiful vegetables. They are serpetine, swanlike, and ballerinaish. I do like to eat them whole, either stir fried or grilled; but, I am a full contact eater and know that we have to be a little more civilized here. Anyway they eat like greenbeans and taste like roasted garlic and are certainly something unique. We may only get another week out of them as they stiffen and unwind and prepare to ripen their bulbuils, and become inedible. The garlic year progresses nonetheless. Soon we will have 'fresh garlic' familiar cloves but from uncured plants. Also, if any member or friend would really like to grow garlic I can give you some cloves from our own personal variety cultivate from local feral stock found at Meadowbrook Gardens. We call it Urbana Tiger, and I will also give you a crash course in how to grow it. You must grow garlic to understand it.

Technique:
Grilled Greens
A deeply loved friend of mine is the most stubborn man I know.
We will call him E. Menzel.
No, no. Thats too obvious.
Eric M.
Thats better.
So Eric M. is an excellent cook and a profoundly motivated fellow. He is fairly convinced that no food item should be inherently considered ungrillable. He will lighly dance any item he can above the charcoal flames, gently teasing ethereal items above the tenuous grate, and suspending them above Smeagol's Demise.
He taught me to grill greens like spinach or swiss chard, and he inspired this salad. I look forward to adding grilled romaine wedges.
To grill greens you must first believe that thin leafy things can in fact be grilled. Next you must dress the greens to protect them from becoming unappetizing crisped mulch. Do this with a generous hulping of crushed garlic in a liberal ammount of olive oil. Toss and massage the greens with their dressing well. With a pair of good tongs lay the preferably whole leaves across the grate of your charbroiler and watch as the greens wilt, begin to mark, and darken in color. Do think of pan wilting spinach as you do this. When they appear half done, give them a flip to finish. If there is a hot spot on your grill, arrange the stem ends towards it.