I’m a big fan of dishes that are easy and fast. One night I was at the store, saw some catfish and decided to buy mysef a fillet. When I got it home I had to find some way to make it interesting with my limited spices. The result has a flavor that very much resembles the physical texture you want to shoot for: lightly seared on the outside that, once breached, reveals a nice soft middle. This will take less than 10 minutes to prepare and cook. Near East makes a sun-dried tomato and rice box that, like everything of theirs, is trivial to make and goes well with this*. We had it with a nice red wine this time but, in retrospect, the flavor is a bit too powerful for wine. Knudsen’s spritzers worked well but I think that the perfect drink for this would be mango juice, although you might want to swap the sun-dried tomato rice with a simpler rice-pilaf if you went that way. If you live near an Indian restaurant you may want to snag some Mango Lassis because this’ll be a little hot. But, neither Miller, nor I, are fans of hot foods and we both like this dish. Ingredients:

When most people encounter the idea of combining pasta with tofu they generally respond with “why?” or “eww!” I’m a huge fan of tofu and if I hadn’t actually tried this I would be raising one eyebrow at it. But it’s good. It’s so good that people who never buy tofu go back for extra tofu bits for their pasta with every helping. I’m not kidding. It’s not mind-blowing or anything but it’s a tasty change and great when you have vegetarian guests. The idea is pretty simple. We’re going to make your traditional pasta withred-sauce and meatballs except we’re replacing the meatballs with crisp tofu slices. Ingredients: