BPA in Food Packaging

I sometimes like to use canned beans or tomatoes for their convenience, but I have been avoiding doing so as much as possible over the last few years since learning that there is BPA (a well-known endocrine disruptor) in the lining of most cans. Eden Organic brand produces BPA free cans for most of their canned beans so I have been using that brand, but I was still concerned about tomatoes. Today I was researching to see if foods canned in Europe might have BPA free packaging and I found this great link so I thought I would share:

Inspirationgreen.com - Cans Without BPA

Simple Baked Tofu

Baked tofu is a good thing to know how to make because it's super easy and you can use it for so many different things. You can add slices of baked tofu to sandwiches, wraps or salads. You can put it in nori rolls with rice, carrots and cucumbers. You can add it to stirfry or noodle dishes. Or you can do like my kids do and eat chunks of baked tofu like you think they're chicken nuggets. You can marinade the tofu in whatever you want in order to get different flavors, complicated or simple. So take this recipe and use the method to make whatever flavor of baked tofu you want. When you bake tofu it takes on the flavor of whatever sauce you use and it also gets a firm and smooth texture.

1 lb. firm or extra firm tofu, cut into 1 inch chunks (I usually do rectangular cubes)
About 1/4 c. shoyu or tamari

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2) Rinse the tofu, pat it dry, and cut it into desired shapes - get crazy, go for triangles or diamonds if you want.

3) Pour the shoyu or tamari into a little bowl and proceed to dip each hunk of tofu into the shoyu making sure to coat each side. Place all of the coated tofu onto the baking sheet spaced evenly apart.

4) Bake the tofu for 25-30 minutes. That's all.

Roasted Garlic

 
Roasted garlic can be spread on toast, mashed up with potatoes, added to soup or used to make delicious sauces. I use roasted garlic for several recipes including vegan buttermilk ranch dressing, so I thought I should put it on here. It's so easy, but so delicious.

1 head of garlic with it's head chopped off, meaning cut off the top 1/4 to 1/2 inch to expose the cloves
Sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cut off the top of the garlic head to expose each clove.

2) Place the garlic on a sheet of foil and drizzle with a little olive oil & sprinkle with a little sea salt.

3) Fold up the foil and bake the garlic for 40 to 60 minutes until the garlic is fragrant and the cloves are nicely browned and softened.

To use, squeeze out as many cloves as you want to use. Or stab a clove with a knife and slide it out. Store the remainder in the fridge until ready to use for a future recipe.

Photo courtesy of Vera Lehner