Veggie Thurs : Tofu in Veggie Tomato Sauce

It's veggie Thursday once again. Despite the crazy workload this week, I'm happy that I can still manage to take care of our dinner, rather than having it delivered. Tonight I did a vegetarian version of the dish that kesa (my roomate) and I called "budget meal".

Photo taken using Panasonic Lumix GF1.

Ingredients:
- 3 pcs sliced tomatoes.
- 1 medium sized white onion, chopped.
- 1 pack (block) of Tofu.
- 3 stems of celery, with leaves, washed thoroughly.
- 1 cup of tomato sauce.
- 1/2 cup water.
- 1 tsp. sugar
- salt and pepper to taste.
- veggie meat (optional)

Preparation

1. Slice the tomatoes and onions, set aside.
2. Cut the celery stems sideways, bite size.
3. Chop the celery leaves. This adds flavor to the dish.
4. Cut the tofu in to four parts and fry it. You can refer to this blog entry to get my technique in frying tofu.
5. After frying tofu, blot it with paper towel to remove excess oil. Then chop it into small cubes/bite size.
6. If you have veggie meat, you may add about 200g of it, also cut in to bite size.

Cooking Proper

1. Heat oil in a pot or wok.
2. Saute onion for a bout 1 minute. Do not over cook as you would like it to be crunchy.
3. Add (veggie meat) tofu and celery stems, mix together for a minute.
4. Toss in the tomatoes and continue mixing for another minute.
5. Add tomato sauce and water. Let it simmer.
6. Toss in the celery leaves.
7. Add about 1 tsp of sugar to lessen the sourness of tomato sauce.
8. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to taste.

Remember, you may put as much sugar as you want, or you may not add it all. It depends on your taste. This also applies to the amount of salt and pepper. Customize it based on your taste preference.