Tofu-Spinach-Bell pepper salad

That's right. I got a a new grill for the 4th of july. 

Only it wasn't so :) I got an electric grill earlier this month. You see I was a bit fed up with grilling in a prehistoric caveman-like way. Directly on the gas flame. Look above you and there you go. Although it did have its benefits ...but the problems far outweighed the advantage of having those really charred flavors. 

Plus I love the stretch marks, I mean the grill marks, on food which a grill does!

And boy, don't I love my new grill! It isn't fancy. But serves more than its purpose. And one of the first things I did with it was a salad. The sole puropose was to grill away colorful veggis and make a salad out of it in a healthy way for the looming summer days aheaf :)

Without much to talk about lets get into the lovely colors-- with some stretch marks

Ingredients:

Any colorful crunchy veggies : I used one giant red bell pepper, thivkly sliced up lenthwise

Tofu: One box of extra firm tofu.

A bunch of Spinach.

2 cloves of garlic. Finely chopped.

1 tbsf of dill or curry leaves.

3-4 tbsf low fat yoghurt

1 tbsf olive oil

1 tbsf soy sauce

1/2 tsp of mustard seed. Optional

1/2 tsp of red chilli flakes.
Half a lime

Salt and pepper to taste

Its a  grilled salad!! So all you do is grill

Drain the Tofu and cover it in a paper towl and press it down with something very heavy for 15-20 mins to drain the liquid. Cut the drained and dries tofu into big fat stripes. The draining drying and thick slicing helps with quicker and less messy and oil free grilling. If you don't have a grill, cut the tofu in small 1' cubes and shallow fry them in some olive oil and place in your salad bowl.

Anyway heat the grill and place your tofu strips on the grill-- without oil--for about 10 minutes. You can use oil of course, but I was trying a healthy way. The best way to know if your tofu is done, when you can take it off the grill effortlessly and without breaking it. Let the tofu cool and then cut it into bite size cubes. Meanwhile start grilling the bell pepper (or the crunchy veggie you are using)--5 minutes. You can also of shallow fry  them (2 min) or broil them on high for 10 minutes. Once the bell pepper is cooled down, cut it in bite seze peices. Lay the tofu cubes and bell pepper in your salad dish. In a skillet, add a tbsf of oilive oil and add one clove of garlic and the spinach. Wilt down the spinach and add to the tofu in the salad dish. 

For the sauce, whish together the remaining clove of garlic, yoghurt, soysauce, curry/ dill leaves. In the remaining oil, crackle the flakes and the mustard see and add all of it to the whisked yoghurt. Mix well and add the sauce to the salad dish. Squeeze the lemon juice from half the lime. Mix well but be careful.  Season with salt and pepper.  Chill and serve. 

A lovely light dish for your summer evenings :) Oh, did you know that yoghurt is a cooling agent. Keeps you cool from inside!

Happy eating and healthy living