Yummy tofu and hummus!

Approximately 1,835 years ago tofu was invented by a prince named Liu An from China. Tofu has connections to the Buddhism religion as one of their main sources of protein. Tofu was used by the Ming Dynasty as well. Tofu is low in calories and has large amounts of protein, it is high in iron, calcium, magnesium and has little fat. There are two main categories of tofu, fresh tofu and processed tofu.The fresh variety of tofu is usually sold immersed in water to maintain its moisture content.

In English we call it tofu, which comes from the word bean in Japanese. Tofu is actually made from soy milk and it is processed bean curd from soybeans. There are all different kinds of tofu, some tofu brands are actually made from other legumes for example the "Shan" variety from Burmese, is made from yellow split peas. A true tofu is made out of soy milk curd, so in essence tofu is what I call "soy milk blocks". It resembles a similar process that we do to milk for cottage cheese.

Tofu is low in fat, if you have one hundred grams of tofu there would be only 4.8 grams of fat. There are several great sites for finding calories to your tofu dishes.

There are several varieties of tofu and ways to prepare it. Firm tofu, fried tofu,frozen tofu, non-tofu. Tofu has very little flavor by itself, therefore tofu can be prepared in many flavorful dishes most commonly with soy sauce or with sesame oil and chilies. I like to cut tofu in chunks and marinate it with BBQ sauce overnight then put them on kebabs with veggies and barbecue them ( it tastes just like chicken). Tofu can also be used to replace cheese on dishes like spaghetti and lasagna. There's just many possibilities! all in all Tofu great source of non-animal protein and can absorb lots of great flavors, so get out there and get your tofu on the Barby!

In many recipes that call for chicken, I use the tofu, especially kabobs. I will add some recipe links below and you can use these ideas for tofu replacement.

Hummus is from an Arabic word that means chickpea,it is actually a legume. Some recipes date back to Cairo in the 13th century. Hummus is mainly used as a dip or spread and many recipes use the garbanzo beans which is a white chickpea, they also have green chickpeas too. Other words for chickpea are ceci bean, Channa and Bengal gram.

Hummus is a great source of fiber and protein. It has also been ground and made into flour to make the "Shan Tofu" talked about in our tofu section above.Hummus is made up of cooked mashed or pureed chickpeas,olive oil, lemon juice, salt, garlic, and tahini.