Waves

While North America is getting buried under piles of snow, and shivering through below-zero temperatures, we Queenslanders are sweating our butts off. It's a heat wave here, much worse for others than for us in Townsville. I actually quite like summers in Townsville. Though it's hot and humid, it's steady. You can be pretty sure that the temperature will never really get above 34. Most of the time. But still, I'll take this over 49 degrees any day! For non-celsiusers, that's 120 degrees F!!

From weatherzone

But just because it's hotter somewhere else doesn't make 33+ days pleasant to deal with! We have ways of coping - for example, setting up a kitteh-fan that Nacho lays in front of.

Another method is cooking barely. Sure, raw foods would make the most sense on the hottest days. But growing vegetables in North Queensland in the summer is pretty limited, so we would have to do our shopping at the supermarkets and pay lots of money. So we get what we can locally, eat some things from the garden and the freezer, and look for reduced-to-clear items at the shops.

And so this dinner was born, requiring very little time in the kitchen. Lime & mustard tofu with okra, garlic bread, and salad (in the background). The tofu was reduced to clear at Woolworths. It's the "momen" tofu, the kind that is firm but jiggly. The garlic bread was also reduced to clear, as was the baby cos lettuce that formed the base of the salad. The okra, and the other salad ingredients - cherry tomatoes, basil, and some green beans - come from the garden. We cooked it all on the BBQ, for minimum-effort-cooking.

Lime & Mustard Tofu

500 grams firm tofu
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. lime juice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. mustard - I used half dijon and half whole grain
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Slice the tofu into 1cm slabs and put them in a baking tray or shallow dish. Whisk together all the other ingredients. Pour over the tofu. Let it marinate for an hour or more. Cook in the pan with the sauce on the BBQ over medium-high heat for about 20 minutes, checking to see if you need to add a bit of water to keep the sauce from burning. Or bake at 190 (375F) for 20 to 25 minutes. Or, take it out of the marinade and cook it straight on the grill or in a skillet for a few minutes on each side.