“A number of rare or newly experienced foods have been claimed to be aphrodisiacs. At one time this quality was even ascribed to the tomato. Reflect on that when you are next preparing the family salad.” – Jane Grigson

I thought taking pictures of my food every day and posting them on the blog would be challenging enough, but actually, this is fun. So I’m setting myself a new challenge: post a food tip with every food diary post. Ideally, this food tip will coincide with with what I ate on that particular day. So today, I bring you my first diary-inspired food tip EVER!

That’s right, marinara sauce is tasty on all kinds of foods: just about any type of vegetable, pan-fried tofu, veggie burgers, even acorn squash (according to Sagan). Today for lunch I had left-over pan-fried tofu and steamed spinach, both with a bit of leftover tomato sauce.

It was delicious, especially the steamed spinach, which is a somewhat boring lump of soggy green leaves otherwise. Here, the rich tomato sauce coated the leaves and added flavor to the sweet spinach. I was in heaven. The marinara was also great with the tofu, and a nice change from my usual scrambles and stir-fries.

So if you’re looking to (gasp!) cut carbs or you don’t like plain vegetables, try marinara sauce on that broccoli. You can even top it with parmesan or mozzarella for an extra special flavor-explosion.

Sunday Food Diary

• Breakfast: Bircher muesli
• Snack: Two white decaf coffees at Bodrum on Kingsland Road (no photo – camera ran out of battery – sad!)
• Lunch: Pan-fried tofu with leftover tomato sauce, roasted tomatoes and steamed spinach
• Dinner: Veggie chili with cabbage salad
• Desserti: Grapefruit (not shown)