WW Tofu nut balls and princesses

One thing leads to another.  Leftover rice led me to a favourite recipe for Tofu Nut Balls.  Buying craft stuff with Sylvia leads us to Spotlight where we bought fabric for blogging photos.  Making princesses and monsters out of old toilet paper rolls leads to ideas for decorating a birthday card.

Here are the princesses and monsters.  The monsters have jangly bells on pipecleaners through holes make with a hole punch.  I meant to make some crazy hair too but the pipecleaners took over.  Googly eyes are lots of fun.  I was impressed that Sylvia wanted trousers on her princess.  I cut out a crown top and tried a few ideas for hair on our princesses.

The hair idea transferred nicely to a princess birthday card.  It was a joint effort between Sylvia and me.  I was pleased to find a use for the ribbon that has been hanging around the house for ages.  Sylvia decided on one green eye and one pink eye.  I'm thinking of trying this card with fabrics rather than paper.

The birthday card was made while these tofu nut balls baked in the oven.  I needed something quick to get dinner underway and, with a tub of old rice, I found we had everything I needed for tofu nut balls.  It is a simple ingredient list and they are easy to make.  The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen was one of the first vegetarian cookbooks I owned.  These tofu nut balls were a magical discovery all those years ago.

I wonder if I would find them quite as amazing if I found the recipe today.  Probably not.  I have encountered many vegetarian burgers since then and they have quite a few similarities to nut roasts.  However, I still find them easy and delicious.  They are equally good as nibbles at a party or vegetarian meatballs with pasta.

Mollie suggests serving them with tomato sauce or mushroom tahini sauce.  I have tried both and prefer tomato sauce.  I made a basic one to serve these with on Friday night - olive oil, onions, garlic, a tin of tomatoes, salt, maple syrup and worcestershire sauce.  Simply yummy.  (I imagine a pumpkin sauce or a pesto sauce would be great too.)

It was a simple dinner with some steamed broccoli and brussels sprouts on the side.  That was all we needed between last week's baking and the weekend's social meals. 

One things leads to another.  A healthy meal leads to Ricki's Wellness Weekends and I have no doubt that visiting the Wellness Weekends page will lead to many interesting and delicious blog entries.  I am also sending the monsters and princesses to Red Ted's Art Blog, a recently discovered source of inspiration for craft.

Lastly, my concern about Shabby Blogs has lead me to take them off my blog design and replace the wallpaper with a new one - check out this post to see the progression of designs on my blog.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: MLLA Chickpea, potato and tomato stew
Two years ago: Syrup cake, shoes and chooks
Three years ago: SHF Apricot sponge – by any other name
Four years ago: Stouty Oatmeal Beer Bread
Five years ago: Sesame and Lemon Bread

Tofu nut balls
From The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen
serves about 4

3/4 cup cooked brown rice (or cook 1/2 cup dried brown rice)
225g firm tofu
2 tbsp tamari
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/2 cup wheatgerm
oil spray (or oil for frying)

Place 1/2 cup cooked rice and 110g of tofu with all the tamari in a food processor or blender and blend to make a smooth paste.  Mash up remaining tofu in a mixing bowl.  Add rice and tofu paste, almonds and wheatgerm.  Stir thoroughly until you have a stiff mixture.  Roll into balls the size of walnuts.  Spray with oil spray and and bake on oven tray at 180 C for about 30 minutes or until golden brown (mine took longer) or shallow fry until golden brown.

On the Stereo:
Unknown Deutschland: the Krautrock Archive, vol 2: Various Artists