Braised Tofu Red Curry

You're doing your part to fight climate change by whipping up a meatless entree like "Coconut-Caramel Braised Tofu" (NYT Cooking; subscription required), but when you toss your green beans into your hot oil, it splatters onto your shirt, making a greasy stain that does not come out in the wash, even when you use stain remover. 

Your shirt is ruined. Or is it?

I'm a co-leader of the Green Team at my small backup dancer's elementary school, and we create opportunities for students to learn about their roles and responsibilities in addressing the ecological challenges facing our planet. Last year, we focused our messaging and activities around a theme of "food and the environment," and this year, our theme is "sustainable clothing choices."

We recently organized a "Visible Mending Workshop" for students, who learned how to apply artful stitching or patches over holes or stains in their clothes. By giving old clothes new life, we break the unsustainable cycle of apparel production, consumption, and disposal. It warmed my green heart to see kids eagerly learning this skill.

Want to give visible mending a try yourself? It's fun! Etsy is a great source of fun iron-on patches, and check out these videos of embroidery stitches that aren't too complicated:

 - Blanket stitch to go around a hole: https://youtu.be/KQnbPGEPC30

 - Star stitch to cover a hole or stain: https://youtu.be/Tei9v2UCrRg

You can mend clothes in ways that AREN'T visible, of course, but then you're losing an opportunity to create a little delight in a world that can often be dull. In short, I'm suggesting that when we get dressed, we should strive to be the person I circled in this photo from my daily Axios AM news update the other day. 

Back to that tofu recipe: I can't really give you a review of it, because I started out tweaking it a little to remove the gluten (miso has gluten, and so does soy sauce), and I ended up making enough changes that it really wasn't Coconut-Caramel Braised Tofu at all. 

First, being true to my personal brand, I screwed something up: I put in the tofu before taking out the beans.

DANG IT those beans were not supposed to still be in that skillet. And that minion behind me was SO SMUG.

I ended up having to pick out the beans with a pair of tongs.

That worked out fine, actually. But to make up for leaving out the miso, I threw in red curry paste. That was fine too, but I didn't put in ENOUGH red curry paste, fearing accusations of spiciness from my backup dancers. So the result was undistinguished, but don't blame the recipe. In fact, the recipe offers a solid technique for making a green bean/tofu curry of any flavor. I'll probably do it again sometime.