Foodie Friday: Peanut Chili Baked Tofu

Who else is excited for the weekend?! I know I’m ready. Time to kick back, relax, and try some new recipes! And speaking of, here’s a fun one if you’re feeling the vegetarian vibe!

Peanut Chili Baked Tofu

Serves 2

Ingredients
1 package super firm tofu (I use Nasoya Sprouted Tofu)
1/2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp chili garlic paste (Lee Kum Kee is my favorite!)
2 tbsp peanut flour (I use Protein Plus, but you can also use PB2, or 1 tbsp nut butter)
5-6 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced

Directions
Preheat oven to 375°F. Place tofu between paper towels with a light weight on top to press out the water. Let sit for about 10 minutes while you prepare the marinade.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients. After your tofu has been pressed, cut into 1″ cubes and toss in the marinade. Let sit for another 5-10 minutes.

Place a greased baking rack on a sheet pan and lay the tofu out in a flat layer. Toss it in the oven and bake about 20-25 minutes, or until the outside is a little crisp.

Serving Suggestions
I prefer my peanut chili tofu with a large helping of roasted vegetables. This would also be great over soba noodles and sauteed veggies or over a salad. You could even make this into a wrap, but I would suggest cutting the tofu into longer strips rather than cubes if you plan on doing a wrap.

Nutritional Stats
Per serving (1/2 recipe)

308 Calories  /  18g Fat  /  10g Carbs  /  5g Fiber  /  4g Sugar  /  26g Protein

Don’t forget to enter my Premier Protein Giveaway! And if you’re dying to get the peanut flour and are new to iherb.com, use the discount code ZAF482 at checkout for $5 off your first order!

Speak Up!

Have you ever had tofu? If so, what’s your favorite tofu recipe?

What I Ate Wednesday #8 – It’s Hot Out There!

Last weekend was a hot one. And calling it a “hot one” doesn’t even do it justice. I believe temperatures reached close to 110° with the heat index! Needless to say, we did not have a very eventful weekend trying to stay inside the whole time. It was a perfect mall day so we ventured out to Bass Pro Shops to fill up on some fishing equipment.

Nathan loves to fish and I, too, enjoy fishing. But I’m not sure Nathan always enjoys fishing with me. It goes a little something like this..

1. Nathan hooks the worm for me
2. I cast out
3. I catch a fish
4. I call Nathan over to take the fish off the hook for me because I do not want to touch that thing!
5a. Nathan throws the fish back in the water and hooks another worm for me
or
5b. I let the hook set for too long and the fish swallowed the hook so Nathan has to re-tie me on and hook another worm for me

What?! Don’t judge! (I also usually end up with a plastic worm after 2 or 3 times of Nathan having to hook a worm on.)

Now he thinks he can try to get me to go stream fishing with him. All of this happening while we’re walking through a stream? I’ll have to report back on how successful this is.

In the meantime, let’s get to my Saturday eats, shall we?

Breakfast
A pineapple protein pancake and bombshell spell courtesy of Tone It Up. Any surprise here? No? Great!

Lunch
Before our trip to Bass Pro Shops, we made a quick lunch stop at DuClaw Brewing Company. They are a brewing company out of Maryland that have a few brew pubs in the area. The foods good and the beer is great! The Mysterium is a Belgian-style spiced ale and I love it. Alright, so this may be Nathan’s beer, but I had a few sips! I also had a delicious strawberry salad with chicken.. definitely recommended!

Snack
Not pictured, but super tasty.. baby carrots and mango curry hummus from The Wild Pea. Once again, highly recommended! They have so many delicious flavors, both sweet and savory. Ever seen peanut butter chocolate chip hummus? Get on it!

Dinner
Look familiar? It’s my tilapia stir-fry with chili peanut sauce. And it was delicious! I’m planning on making a big batch of that sauce to have around for everything. So good! You should really try it 😉

And we’re talking fitness, eh? Well if you know anything about a Tone It Up girl, you know that we love our bootycalls!

If you just gasped, you clearly don’t know what a bootycall is!

I get up at least 45 minutes early every morning to get in some cardio and abs. It was rough when I first started, there’s no doubt, but now I can’t start my day without it! My favorite cardio workouts in the morning are typically pulled from the SELF Drop 10 Challenge, created by the lovely Tone It Up ladies themselves, Karena and Katrina.

These cardio workouts are called HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training. It’s such an awesome way to jump start your metabolism in the morning and burn more calories in a shorter amount of time than a regular steady cardio workout. If you’ve never tried a HIIT workout, definitely check it out. They’re all the rage! 😉

Speak Up!

What’s your favorite workout? Do you like to workout in the morning or the evening?

Tilapia Stir-Fry with Chili Peanut Sauce

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks over here.. planning a wedding is tough! I’ve been busy with caterer appointments, researching bands, and an engagement party (that wasway too much fun!) Not to mention 4th of July fell in there too, so when I finally had time to cook this past weekend, I was thrilled! I grabbed all of the random veggies left in my fridge and got to work.

Serves 2

Ingredients

Stir-Fry
2 4oz. tilapia filets
1 1/2 cups napa cabbage, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 cup snow peas
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 radishes, sliced
1 large scallion, chopped
2 tbsp sliced almonds
2 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tbsp coconut oil for vegetables, 1/2 tbsp coconut oil for tilapia
Salt
Black pepper
Garlic powder

Sauce
1/4 cup PB2 or peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut water
2 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp spicy chili sauce
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced
Black pepper

Directions
Combine all sauce ingredients in a bowl and warm in the microwave about 30 seconds.

Heat a pan over medium high heat with 1 tbsp coconut oil. Once preheated, toss in your cabbage and carrots. Saute for about 5 minutes.

At this time, in a separate pan, toast the almonds and coconut over medium low heat until a little brown and put it off to the side.

While the almonds and coconut are toasting, add the bell pepper and zucchini to the cabbage and carrot mixture. Saute another 10 minutes and finally add the snow peas and garlic. Saute until

Preheat a pan over medium high heat and add 1/2 tbsp coconut oil. Season your tilapia with salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. Once the pan is preheated, add the tilapia. Saute about 5 minutes, then flip and saute another 5-7 minutes until the fish is completely cooked through.

Add some of the sauteed vegetables into a bowl and top with some sliced radishes. Place a piece of tilapia on top and sprinkle the coconut almond mixture, as well as the chopped green onion. Drizzle some chili peanut sauce on top and enjoy!

Speak Up!

What is your favorite way to use PB2?

What I Ate Wednesday #5 – My Favorite Sensible Dessert

Another week, another What I Ate Wednesday post! But this one has a recipe.. check it out!

Recently my eats have been looking rather similar on the day-to-day front. And I’m perfectly ok with that! Breakfast is looking something like this..

A Tone It Up pineapple protein pancake (and dare I say, I’ve totally mastered the flip!), topped with a drizzle of maple syrup, a couple diced up strawberries, some blueberries, some unsweetened shredded coconut, and a little extra sprinkling of cinnamon. Along side of that, I have the Bombshell Spell, which is a deliciously wonderful way of getting a little shot of apple cider vinegar into your life. These recipes come directly from the Tone It Up Beach Babe plan that you get when you purchase their membership plan, and are a part of the 5 Day Slim Down that I did last week. Since mastering the pancake, I’ve been craving it like no other. I could seriously eat it everyday.. sometimes twice a day!

Snack #1 is 1/2 grapefruit sprinkled with Stevia or Truvia and some coffee with almond milk.

For lunch, I’m loving some teriyaki marinated tofu with homemade pineapple salsa all wrapped in collard greens. It’s a relatively new-to-me idea to use the collard greens as wraps, but it’s wonderful!

My absolute favorite afternoon snack is my new Peanut Butter Cup Protein Shake, and the past few times I’ve made it, I put 1 cup of spinach in. You don’t even taste it and you get that little bit of extra veggie.

For dinner, I mixed it up a bit. This delicious bulgar wheat salad with asian slaw and chicken really hit the spot! I found a recipe awhile back for Asian Quinoa Salad, but when I found myself at the store looking for quinoa that wasn’t there, I grabbed the bulgar wheat and went to town! Other than being a wheat product as compared to a grain, bulgar wheat has many of the same nutritional aspects as quinoa. It’s high in protein, low in calories, and low in fat as well! It also has a little bite to it that I really enjoy. Please excuse the not-so-lovely picture..

And now onto my favorite sensible dessert. I’ve pretty much made it every night for the past couple weeks.

Apple Pie Parfait

1 serving

Ingredients
1 apple – I prefer fuji
1/4 cup fat free vanilla greek yogurt
Cinnamon
Walden’s Sugar-Free, Calorie-Free Chocolate Syrup

Directions
Chop up apple into bite size pieces and toss with a little cinnamon. Put the apple in a glass and top with half of the yogurt, a little sprinkle of cinnamon, and a drizzle of the chocolate syrup. Repeat for the other half of the apple and yogurt, and devour!

If you really want to get fancy, throw some dark chocolate chips in there or even a little unsweetened shredded coconut.

I really love this as an after workout dessert because the yogurt gives me a little bit of protein, but it’s not too heavy before bed.

Speak Up!

What’s your favorite sensible dessert?

Peanut Butter Cup Protein Shake

I’m the kinda gal that could eat chocolate and peanut butter all day, everyday. Often times, my pre- or post-workout fuel has these 2 delectable ingredients since I try to fit them in wherever I can! Luckily for me, the lovely people over at CalNaturale Svelte sent over some samples of their protein drinks and I went to town!

1 Serving

Ingredients
1 cup chocolate CalNaturale Svelte
1 frozen banana
2 tbsp protein powder; I use About Time Vanilla Whey Protein Isolate.. my fave!
2 tbsp PB2 or peanut flour

Directions
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Enjoy!

This would be super delicious topped with unsweetened shredded coconut, a little bit of dark chocolate shavings, or even a little drizzle of chocolate syrup. Yum!

Speak Up!

What’s your favorite pre- or post-workout fuel? Do you go for the sweets or more towards savory?

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Paradise

Sometimes people just get you. And this month, my foodie penpal, Lindsay, just got me.

Anything peanut butter and chocolate, of course, but I do like healthy, please! And look what arrived!

Along with the almond coconut, the peanut butter dark chocolate KIND bar is my favorite. Seriously, what could be bad?!

And have you ever tried PB2 or any kind of peanut flour? For a lover of peanut butter and healthy eats, this is practically heaven! Low cal, low fat, low sugar.. must I go on?

I use it in my oatmeal, smoothies, sauces, and everything else I can possibly get it in!

What’s this? More chocolate and peanut butter?!

I have been eyeing these at Whole Foods for the longest time but just haven’t bit the bullet. And I have to admit I haven’t tried them yet. But what would possibly not be amazing?

And finally, sugar-free, 0 calorie chocolate sauce. Again, I haven’t tried it yet, but I can imagine it will be a staple on my healthy sundaes this summer!

And that wraps up another successful month of foodie penpals! It really is a fantastic program and I can’t thank Lindsay over at The Lean Green Bean for starting this! I look forward to a package every month 🙂

Are you interested in becoming a foodie penpal?!

Foodie Penpals Terms & Conditions“

By signing up to participate in Foodie Penpals, you are hereby agreeing to the following terms and conditions:

-Condition 1: You will contact the person you are matched with withing 72 hours of receiving your match to discuss dietary needs, allergies and food preferences.

-Condition 2: You will make an effort to meet the dietary needs of your penpal- ie not sending animal products to vegans, dairy products if your match tries to avoid dairy or junk food if they ask for healthy snacks.

-Condition 3: You will mail your box by the 15th of the month. It is HIGHLY recommended that you purchase delivery confirmation/get a tracking number for your package. It is very inexpensive and can be used to prove that you sent your package in the event that it gets lost.
If your match does not receive a package for the month, you will receive a warning. If it happens two months in a row, you will no longer be able to participate in the program

-Condition 4: In the event that you do not receive a package, Lindsay and The Lean Green Bean blog cannot be held accountable. By agreeing to participate in FPP, we cannot 100% guarantee that you will receive a package. The mail gets lost occasionally and your partner may fail to deliver.

Failure to comply with these terms and conditions is grounds for dismissal from the Foodie Penpals Program.”