Thai Curry Tofu

Warning: glass pans can be hazardous to your health. I hope this doesn't take your appetite away but yes, that's a picture of my foot about a week after developing blood poisoning from a wound inflicted by an exploding Pyrex glass pan. This picture shows my foot on the recovering end of the injury. You can use your imagination to picture how it looked seven days earlier. I was unable to walk, instead I just hobbled from chair to chair, which couldn't be far apart or I was writhing in pain.

All of this "fun" and I didn't even get to eat the chicken I had baked in the oven when the pan exploded and shot glass shards as far as 15 feet in my kitchen. But the hard part is over. Now, I just don't want to see others go through this same situation. Pyrex, now manufactured by World Kitchens, denies any wrong doing for any of the many complaints they have received. Instead, they attribute it to user error.

Oh sure, I'm a college graduate but I don't know how to properly use a glass pan. This reminds me of when I had a kickstand problem with my first mountain bike. It was a fairly inexpensive one and the kickstand was too short. I took it to the bike shop where I purchased it and explained that the kickstand wouldn't work. I was told I just didn't know how to operate a kickstand. You can imagine how well that went over. The bike shop received a very heated letter and shortly after that, they apologized and fixed the kickstand.

I've never had any problems with their pans until five years ago when I decided to replace some of my antique Pyrex pans (20-30 years old) with new ones. Three of these new ones have exploded either in the oven or upon being removed from the oven. Until the latest mishap, I had never been injured. If you are interested in reading more about exploding glass pans, go to http://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/pyrex.html In the meantime, I am beginning to file complaints with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and State Attorney General's office as my first steps.

I'm happy to have my injury healing but I am not happy about having to take 14 days of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Every time I pop one in my mouth, I know I am risking having my candida problem reoccur. Candida flourish when good bacteria are killed off which basically is what antibiotics do: they don't discriminate between good and bad bacteria. They just gun them all down. My stomach definitely does not like the antibiotics. It has been all haywire since the first few days of using them.

You can't keep me from cooking though. Just don't ask me to use glass pans. This week everything curry seemed to go down well. Probably all those spices helped settle my stomach. My favorite was Thai Curry Tofu with Vegetables.

Ingredients for 2 servings:

1/2 pound firm or extra firm tofu(cubed)

Spice blend of 2 T. coriander seed, 1 T. cumin seed, 1 tsp. caraway seed (all crushed in a spice mill) plus 1 tsp. garlic powder, salt and pepper, 2 T. dried cilantro

2 cloves garlic minced

1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and diced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 zucchini, diced

6 asparagus stalks, trimmed and cut in half

1/2 red bell pepper, cut into small squares

1 T. Thai red curry paste

1/4 cup vegetable broth (Imagine makes a good broth that is unsweetened.)

1/4 cup unsweetened soy milk

Directions:

In a large skillet, sprayed with pan spray, brown the tofu cubes, which were tossed in the some of the spice blend beforehand. Remove and set aside.

Add the onion, garlic, ginger and carrot. Saute for a five minutes with some of the vegetable broth added to the pan. Add the zucchini, asparagus and red pepper, and cook for a few more minutes. Remove and set aside.

Add the Thai red curry paste to the pan with the rest of the vegetable broth and stir until smooth. When it begins to bubble, add the soy milk (or use unsweetened coconut milk for more of a Thai flare) and blend. Add the vegetables and tofu back to the skillet and cooked for a few minutes.

Serve over brown rice if not on the anti-candida diet.