Hey! There's a recipe in this one

Happy "my kid is back in school, but now I miss him" to all my mama friends.

I think I might be 75% kale at this point. I’ve been eating it a lot for lunches the past few weeks since it’s fairly quick and tastes yummy. Actually the only thing I don’t like about kale is how easily it gets stuck in my teeth. Sautéed kale with portobello mushrooms is a go-to for my WFH lunch. If I’m feeling fancy I like to make some crispy crunchy tofu to go on top. I’m going to share instructions at the end of this email. I’d say recipe, but I measure with my heart and I’m not sure how much of what I put in this thing. So I hope you also use units like “a splish” and “a glug”.

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad I get to sit in the school pickup line again. I’ve been drawing a lot recently. Mostly flowers and flower accessories. *Screams in Peggy Hill* I made that drawing I showed you last month into a shirt and I’ve been exploring other options for shirts. So, that’s mostly what I’ve been working on. You can see what I have so far here. I’ve been snoozing my deadline for my Mama Mouse writing that I set for myself and then having an internal crisis about it. I re-read what I had written already and just thought it was trash, so there’s that.

Summer gardening is wrapping up so I’ve been slowly cleaning out the beds to get ready for Fall gardening. Fingers crossed I have some sweet potatoes to harvest here soon. I planted pumpkins that are supposed to be huge, but I planted them a little late so we’ll see what they do. I had a lot of success growing kale last year, so I want to grow some again. I also am going to try growing turnips and cabbage.

Ok friends, here’s how I make sautéed kale and portobello with crispy crunchy tofu.

Dishes you need to dirty:

• 1 medium pan

• 1 bigger than medium pan

• a heat-safe bowl big enough for tossy tossy

• utensils

Ingredients:

• Avocado oil or EVOO (I use Avocado oil)

• Salt & fresh cracked pepper

• Extra Firm Tofu

• Corn Starch

• Mirin (or you can use rice vinegar + sugar)

• Coco Aminos ( or Soy Sauce)

• Sriracha

• Kale

• Mushrooms (I use portobello)

• Onions are optional

Clean your mushrooms and cube them or roughly chop them however you want. Chop any other veggies you want to add to the kale. I like adding sweet onion to help balance the bitterness of the kale. Add some oil to your bigger pan and add the mushrooms and onions (or other veggies) and sauté until almost soft. Add the kale and season to taste. If you don’t want to do the tofu, you can skip the rest. The kale and mushroom sauté is really good on top of black rice. I love to meal prep that for lunches during the week.

Add oil to the medium pan and get it heating up to medium-high. We are pan frying these tofu cubes.

Drain and do that thing to the tofu where you get as much excess water out. Cut into about 1 inch cubes. In the bowl, add corn starch and the tofu and tossy toss til they are all coated in the corn starch. This is what makes them crunchy. When is the oil is hot enough, add the tofu and fry until lightly golden flipping as needed. They won’t get dark, but you can tell they are done by how crispy they crust is.

While the tofu is frying, clean that bowl out so we can put our sauce situation in there.

Into the bowl add a good splish of your coco animos or soy sauce. Then a glug of mirin. Then a little bit of sriracha to your desired heat level. We don’t want a lot of sauce. You can make your own sauce, this is just what I like right now. Mix it all together and taste to make sure it’s to your liking. When the tofu is done and crispy, add it straight in the sauce and toss until it’s all coated. If there is extra sauce in there remove the tofu from the bowl sooner than later so it doesn’t get soggy.

Plate up your kale stuff and put the tofu on top. Now, pretend you are eating lunch with me and we’re talking about cool ideas for stuff that we have no time or funds to ever execute.