Two baked recipes

It is summer here, however, yesterday was one of those boring rainy days and we ended up staying home for most of the time (did a quick trip to the grocery store in between showers though!).
And you know, when you stay at home for too long you start to look for something to eat, right? Or, at least I am like that… and in my case I look for something to cook.
With lots of time to get our meal ready, I decided to get a couple recipes I wanted to make and give them a try. And since it wasn’t ultra hot I turned the oven on.
Zucchini Oven Chips were a delicious side dish, which both Matheus and I liked it a lot! In fact, Matheus liked it so much that he started to pile them in his plate, even before finishing eating his fare, when he saw they were almost gone. The “chips” were super tasty with the crumb coating, but didn’t actually turn out very crisp. Well, crisp or not they were really good and there were none to tell history. A nice change to the vegetable side dish, tasty and yummy, will be made again pretty soon with the abundance of cheap zucchini we can buy during the summer!
Baked Tofu Sticks were another of my recently experimentation with tofu. These were super simple and easy to make and quite tasty too! I liked the fact they were baked, since my previous success involved pan-frying them, which was not bad healthy wise, but did a lot of splattering around the stove.
My tip for these is to not cut them too thin, unless you want them to be really crispy/crunchy. Some of mine were thin and got over browned, ending up almost like french fries. Sounds good, I know, but I was actually aiming for a more “meatier” texture, like a slightly crispy crust with a chewier inside. Plus, I ended up over doing the seasoning and our sticks were a little salty, but all of this won’t happen next time, after all, as I said this was the first experimentation, so there is going to be a next time for sure!
We had the chips and the sticks with macaroni & cheese, and Matheus was in heaven! A fun meal and two more tested recipes, at the end it was not bad having a little rain after all!
Ana

Zucchini Oven Chips
1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons fat-free milk
2 1/2 cups (1/4-inch-thick) slices zucchini (about 2 small)
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425°.
Combine first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Place milk in a shallow bowl. Dip zucchini slices in milk, and dredge in breadcrumb mixture. Place coated slices on an ovenproof wire rack coated with cooking spray; place rack on a baking sheet. Bake at 425° for 30 minutes or until browned and crisp. Serve immediately. Yield: 4 servings (serving size: about 3/4 cup)
Cooking Light, August 2005.

Baked Tofu Sticks (adapted from Martha Stewart’s website)
Firm tofu
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut tofu into sticks, put sticks on a double layer of paper towels, cover with more paper towels (you can out something on top to make some weight at this point) and let stand until tofu has released extra liquids, 20 to one hour.
Preheat oven to 375F. Cover baking sheet with foil and brush it well with olive oil (don’t want the tofu to stick to it!). Arrange tofu sticks on baking pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Bake until both sides are crisp and golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes per side.