Lazy Lemon Tofu

+ your coffee order is always wrong? Here's how to order.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• Announcement: Patreon

• Social tip: How to order coffee without cow’s milk

• Recipe: Lazy Lemon Tofu

TL;DR: All future recipes in this newsletter will now be FREE.

I’ve been experimenting with this newsletter in order to monetize my social media somehow. However, I don’t think charging ~$8 a month for 4 recipes is the way I’d like to monetize.

I have decided that I will continue to create free content on social media and this newsletter.

Instead of Substack, I will monetize via Patreon, where you can support me for as little as $1 a month.

Of course, you can still contribute here, via Substack (thank you so much to my paid supporters!).

Finally, I welcome free subscribers to this newsletter, because my goal at the end of the day is to help people become — and stay — vegan. It’s not all about the money.

Why Support Serena?

I've been vegan on and off since I was 16 - consistently now since 2015 and for about 12 years in total. For years I would hide my veganism because I was ashamed of being different. I was much younger and less confident back then.

I've been creating on vegan social media for 3 years, with a goal to help others make the transition to veganism as seamless as possible. I don't want anyone to feel the way I felt.

My content on social media remains free to you, but it's not free for me to create. Being a creator comes with costs. Your support will enable me to continue creating content to help more people become -- and stay -- vegan.

If you decide to support me -- wow thank you so much! You'll get access to exclusive recipes, voice notes, shopping lists, and behind the scenes content. And of course you will have my gratitude.

If any of this speaks to you, then please consider supporting me over on Patreon.

And now, back to the newsletter.

You’re at a cafe, and you want a coffee. With oat milk. But for some reason, you’re always given cow’s milk, not oat!

This happens too often. I realized recently it’s because I order in the most confusing way! Consider the 2 methods of ordering - which one is more likely to be successful?

1. “I’ll have one iced matcha oat latte.”

2. “I’ll have one matcha latte, iced, with oat milk.”

I always order with option 1. No wonder my order often comes with cow’s milk (the default milk).

Because coffee shops are noisy places! Baristas are listening for item names first: latte, flat white, cappuccino.

If you say oat latte, they might just hear latte.

So the social tip for today is, when you’re ordering at a cafe:

1. Order the item,

2. then the add ons,

3. and PAUSE while you order: “I’ll have one matcha latte… iced… with oat milk.”

You’ll be more likely to receive the drink you think you ordered.

Today’s social tip is a bit of a silly one. Maybe you know perfectly well how to order a coffee. Maybe you’ve never had a problem receiving the milk you requested.

But that’s the spirit of these social tips. Answering vegan and social oriented questions that might seem obvious to some, but unclear to others.

Let me know what questions about social situations you have. I’ll answer them in future newsletters.

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I used to love lemon chicken but haven't had it since I went vegetarian 17 years ago (can't believe it's been so long!).

This lemon tofu recipe is the veganized version of a lemon chicken recipe I have in a Cantonese cookbook. Just with tofu :)

Lemon Tofu

Serves: 2 - 4
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

Tools:

• A frying pan

Ingredients

• 1 pack of extra firm tofu (about 300g)

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine

• 1 tbsp light soya sauce

• 1 lemon

• 1 tbsp white sugar

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

• 3 slices ginger (about 1 tbsp)

• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

1. Cut tofu into cubes, strips, whatever you prefer.

2. Slice the ginger and lemon into rounds.

3. Fry tofu in 1 tbsp of vegetable oil, over medium high heat.

4. Once it's brown on both sides, move the tofu over, add a little bit more oil to the pan and add in the ginger and lemon. Fry until brown, about 3 minutes.

5. Move the tofu, lemon, and ginger over to the side of the pan. Add the soya sauce, sugar, Shaoxing cooking wine, and give it a stir to incorporate.

6. You're done! Serve with rice or however you like.

Lemon Tofu

40.6KB ∙ PDF file

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• What if I don’t want a big slice of ginger or lemon in my stir fry?

  • For the lemon: You can squeeze the lemon juice out and throw that into the stiry fry instead of the full lemon slice. If you go this route, you could even use the lemon zest as part of the stiry fry for an extra lemon taste.

  • For the ginger: Instead of large ginger rounds, slice it and dice it as thin as you can so you barely notice it.

• Meal prep: Try meal prepping the lemon sauce. With double or triple of ingredients:

  • 1. Grate a lemon to get its zest. Then juice it.

  • 2. Slice the ginger.

  • 3. Mix together the lemon zest juice, ginger, soya sauce, sugar, and Shaoxing cooking wine. Stir

  • 4. Keep this mixture in the fridge for up to 1 week.

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• White sugar: Brown sugar or maple syrup would work.

• Shaoxing cooking wine: White vinegar or white wine would work. Or omit this if you’d like!

• Light soya sauce: For this 1 tbsp of light soya sauce, you can sub 1/2 tbsp dark soya sauce, or 1 tbsp salt. But really, using light soya sauce is best.

  • If you aren’t sure what kind of soya sauce you have - if it’s not labelled - then it’s likely light or regular. Go ahead and use 1 tbsp as outlined in the recipe.

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