Putting my feet in the soy

I have been neglecting my blog for quite a while. Had wanted to blog on Mid-autumn festival, but it was gone in a flash and I realize I did not have that much to say about my mooncakes anyway since I use a store-bought snowskin premix and store-bought redbean filling. 

But as I was rolling the dough for the snowskin, I was wondering to myself that perhaps all those claimed "homemade" mooncakes are mostly really not that homemade afterall? I mean in these days, how many people would go make their own lotus paste?Another thing that was going in my mind as I was leaning my weight on the rolling pin was a reminder to myself that I will never make mooncakes again. I absolutely hate the oily feeling of shortening on my hands! Years ago I made baked mooncakes and the amount of oil that went into it made me swear not to bake them again. Now I am swearing off snowskin ones too. Next year, I shall just go buy 1 or 2 lotus paste ones from my favourite hotel (yeah, I belong to those "old-fashioned" ones who still prefer lotus paste with yolks compared to all the fancy new flavours which come and go every year). But in any case, here is the nothing-to-shout-about pictures of my mooncake :p

A couple of weeks ago (they would be turning into months if I still did not blog about it), I went for a cooking class. I enjoy going to cooking classes since I only choose those that really interest me and make me feel like it's money worth spending, and usually, I only go for hands-on classes. 

When I saw the description "making your own tofu..." on the Palate Sensations website, I was immediately sold. It has been something I had always wished to learn (and yes...I have a long list...). I looked forward to the class and was happy to know that there were only 3 students that day. Big classes always irritate me in some way or other because usually, because a lot of time is wasted on everything else other than the cooking and teaching. 

We started off with making the tofu. It wasn't that difficult and we had our homemade tofu in no time!

 The tofu alone was bland. So we topped it with seaweed sauce and it was an instant hit!

In the process of making tofu, there are the "remains of the soy beans". We used them to make biscuits and nuggets! Not only are these food healthy, nothing is wasted here!

My favourite of the evening was the Tofu Cheese. Initially I thought we were going to learn to make tofu cheesecake. I was wrong. But this tofu cheese makes a good dip for garlic bread sticks, the okara nuggets and even on its own! The taste is not something I expect to achieve from tofu. It does really tastes a little like cheese and best of all, it was made from organic ingredients. 

Our instructor that night was a chef who is a vegetarian. He did a wonderful job of showing us how these healthy tofu dishes can easily be prepared at home. He also shared with us how he and his vegetarian family prepare their meals and the type of ingredients (mostly organic) they use. My little promise to my own body is that I will include more organic food in my diet gradually, even if it means beginning from just organic salt or flour. Doesn't the indestructible hamburger in the news scare you? It freaked the skin out of me. I know fast food is not good, but not to this extent surely?!