We now have someone who is eating our stash of frozen meals, so I need to keep up. No matter. I love cooking. Cooking is the easy part in this arraignment. Tony is doing the hard part. We are adjusting to our new normal. He has been having a difficult time adjusting to the way his mom is now versus the way she used to be. One thing about people with dementia is that they don’t like the reality as they see being challenged. The best thing to do is to let them believe what they want. Fighting them on it just causes outbursts.

This week I am doing something simple. I am starting out with a recipe for Tofu Shashlik from Love Food. This recipe already has a good amount of vegetables, but needs more protein. It also needs to have the tomato removed. I don’t think this will be too difficult to accomplish.

Here are the original stats:

Here’s what I changed:

• I deleted the added salt to reduce the sodium.
• I replaced the tomatoes with pumpkin puree to increase the vitamin A and remove the tomato.
• I added green beans to bulk out the recipe
• I increased the amount of tofu to increase the protein.

Here are the final stats:

Here is the final recipe:

Higher Protein Tofu Shashlik

Serves 4

• 1 small onion, finely sliced
• 4 fat garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 small piece of fresh ginger, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin, seeds or ground
• 1 pinch chilli flakes
• 15 oz can of pure pumpkin puree
• 3.5 oz red bell peppers, chopped
• 7 oz frozen spinach
• 14 oz firm tofu, drained (see tip) and diced
• 2 tsp any type of flour
• 3.5 oz frozen peas, or a handful of greens
• 24 oz frozen green beans

1. Toss the onion, garlic and ginger into a saucepan with a splash of the oil. Add the spices and cook on medium heat for a few minutes so the onion, garlic and ginger softens.
2. Pour in the pumpkin and add the peppers and spinach, stir well, and transfer to a back burner on low heat to cook. This forms the sauce for the shashlik and will benefit from the longest possible cooking time you can bear to give it. An hour is ideal but not everyone’s budgets and patience will stretch to that, so 15 minutes is just fine.
3. When the sauce is thickened, you can start to cook the tofu. Pop it in a bowl with the flour and a pinch of salt. Give it a shake to coat it and slightly rough up the edges – this is important for the crisp factor, as dishevelled edges cook faster.
4. Gently grease a frying pan with a little of the oil and pop over high heat to warm it, then carefully add the tofu. Cook for 3–4 minutes, then turn the tofu over to cook it on the other side. A cube has six sides, remember, so there is going to be some serious turning over to do if you are determined to have the crispiest tofu in all the land. When it is as crisp as you like, remove it and pop it in the pan of sauce sitting on the back of the stove.
5. Give it a quick stir and stir through the peas or greens. 
6. Add the green beans to the pan and fry until browned as much as you like.
7. Serve the Shashlik over the green beans.