A HEALTHFUL AND MEATLESS DIET

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[6] The Book of Tofu(Revised Edition), by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, is a complete guide to making and cooking with tofu, soymilk, and okara. It's available for $11.95 plus $1.50 for shipping and handling from Mother's Bookshelf at the address given above.

[7] The Deaf Smith Country Cookbook , by Marjorie Winn Ford et al., is chock-full of easy-to-prepare, tasty vegetarian recipes. It's available for $6.95 plus 35¢ for shipping and handling from Macmillan Publishing, Order Department, Front and Brown Sts., Riverside, NJ 08075.

Another fun—and, as it turns out, very traditional—way to prepare tofu is to convert it into age (ah-GAY), a deep-fried soy curd. First, press your tofu between absorbent towels with a cutting board and weight on top for about an hour. Then slice it into thin pieces or small cubes, and deep-fry them in 3-4 inches of vegetable oil until they float to the top and turn golden brown. Agé has a delicious crunchy texture and can be used in an almost infinite number of ways, thanks to its firm shape and low water content (enabling it to absorb flavors even more readily than regular tofu). You can broil chunks of agé along with vegetable pieces for a meatless shish kebab... sauté agé cubes along with mushrooms, bean sprouts, and grated gingerroot in a traditional oriental stir-fry ... or use them to "beef up" a hearty winter stew.

The rest of this mini-manual will have more ideas that should help make venturing into this brave new world of vegetarian cookery even more worthwhile!

Sumptuous Soybean Repasts
Barbara Heller

It's hard to find a more healthful (or less expensive) food than the soybean. This versatile legume—which can be prepared in a multitude of ways, from soymilk to "ice bean" desserts to fermented tempeh—is low in starch and devoid of cholesterol while being high in protein, minerals, vitamins, and lecithin. The following four soybean recipes (which have been kitchen-tested in my home by three hungry men and rated excellent) should help you on your way to discovering a nutritious, tasty, low-meat diet.

PREPARING THE BEANS

Although the fastest way to cook soybeans (or any other dried bean) is in a pressure cooker—unsoaked soybeans will take about 40 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure—I generally prefer to soak the beans overnight and simmer them the next evening. I usually cook one or two pounds of soybeans each week, leaving half of them whole and grinding up the rest in my food mill. In this way, a single cooking gives me the basis for a week's meals with a minimum of effort. I also save and store the nutritious cooking water for later use in soups, breads, and other dishes.

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