Fruit Salad

Fruit Salad

I grew up with fruit salad that had a little bit of orange juice stirred in.  However, if you are using oranges in your fruit salad, you can just cut the orange segments out for one of them instead of the larger orange slices, and then squeeze what's left and you have enough fresh orange juice to help out your fruit salad!

BBQ Tofu & Fruit Salad

BBQ Tofu and Fruit Salad

Barbecued Tofu is a comfort food for me and one of my favorites.  I grew up eating BBQ Tofu on brown rice.  It's delicious!

Use extra-firm tofu, cube it, marinate it in the BBQ sauce, and then bake it in the oven on parchment paper.  When it seems like its near done, broil it to brown.

I grew up on homemade BBQ sauce and the storebought stuff is just not the same.  Here's how to make delicious homemade barbecue sauce:

1.  Put ketchup in a bowl.  BBQ sauce is mostly ketchup.  If you end up adding too much soy sauce and make the sauce too thin, you can always add more ketchup later.

2.  Add in some soy sauce (or shoyu, or Braggs, etc.).  When you mix it, it should become the right thickness, color, and taste.  This is the base of your BBQ sauce.  If you end up with too much of everything below, you can add more ketchup and soy sauce to dilute the other flavors.

3.  If you want to, add in a dash of worcestershire sauce, tempura sauce, fish oil, or anything of the like.

4.  Add in a bit of olive oil.

5.  Add in sweet and sour.  Keep in mind the ketchup is likely already sweetened.  I used honey, freshly squeezed lemon, and a dash of apple cider vinegar.  Depending on your mood any sweetener and any citrus or vinegar will do.

6.  Add in seasonings (garlic and onion can be fresh, dried, or both):  minced garlic, minced onion, pepper, a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg (optional), a dash of mustard, some heat if wanted (e.g. jalapenos, crushed chili flakes, etc.).  Note: I do not add salt because soy sauce is usually already pretty salty and ketchup usually already has salt in it as well.

Voila!  You have delicious BBQ sauce.

Salted Caramel

Salted Caramel Sauce
Where did the rest go?

1.  In a saucepan, combine 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon agave syrup (or other liquid sweetener), and 3 tablespoons water.

2.  Bring to a boil and swirl for about 5 minutes until it turns dark amber in color.

3.  Remove from heat, slowly add in 1/4 cup cream (mixture will foam/bubble).

4.  Stir in 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

5.  Allow to set/thicken by letting it cool a little bit.