Tofu stix for the fam: easy healthy recipe

Tofu Stix for the fam

1. Drain and dry firm tofu in between two towels.  Two packs roughly fills a full size cookie tray with two rows of "stix".
2. Cut tofu chunx in half the long way, then the short way about ten times to get stick structure.
3. Spray generously with cooking spray. Sprinkle with a lot of salt and pepper.
4. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Take out and put a little BBQ sauce on each stick.  Bake another fifteen to twenty minutes.
5. Enjoy crispy stix of protein-filled yumminess!!!

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Freedom from Want

I took a speed-walk (wannabe jog rather) with myself tonight--the new nearly-thirty-three-year-old version of myself that is.

I intended to do a walking meditation and reflect, but instead ended up perhaps over-reflecting. I've always been a painfully self-conscious, overly-self-aware kind of person, something that I un-ironically knew about myself and accepted in the way one accepts a chicken pox scar--meaning, it was there, I was there and that's that.

I've been obsessing most lately on house repair starting about eight months ago. When a nearly-completely corroded copper pipe in our Victorian-style and Victorian-age house finally kicked the bucket (no pun intended?) we ended up with a raining ceiling, with tiles folding like cardboard and with a couch on its way to a moldy death.

"Like a good neighbor," State Farm replaced everything, but like a bad neighbor sent us a threatening letter a few months later insisting that we complete a laundry list of repairs on our home within ninety days. We have about fifteen days left.

Well, stress and worry are my fortes so I jumped right on this. I called contractors, did interviews, research, talked to neighbors (real ones not the State Farm mofo ones!) all between fussing over my sweet Joshy.

So what do I see when I walk contemplatively in my town? Siding, porches, windows, paint jobs, and ok, a few ridiculously Rockwellian kids climbing trees and playing ball on the lawn. I find myself creating an envy-green home for myself-- a Frankenstein creation of parts coming together into a giant conglomeration of The Best House.

But I feel guilty as heck of course. I don't want to want stuff. Don't covet your neighbor or something? So I look in a window at a family poised for dinner--looks like am extended one with a few gray heads and a few little heads. As I begin to piece their conversation together in my mind, I don't hear anything polite. This adorable family is quite cranky, with their lovely blue gingerbread siding and their well-manicured landscaping. They aren't miserable, just irritable, just ok, and I am starting to feel ok too.

hecking out all the houses in my town.

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