Chocolate-Tofu Pudding

Well, I guess it’s about time she went back to the U.S. and had some spare time to spend in front of her computer, so now I’m posting this entry. This is a post dedicated to a very good friend of mine, Robin. Yes, you, Robin. You thought I forgot about the promise? No, no. I was waiting ‘til the right time. Chocolate-tofu Pudding with a Strawberry (sliced in half) and a Sprig of Mint There are 2 foods that always remind me of my friend, Robin every time I see them or eat them. One is Imo-ten (batter-fried sweet potatoes) sold at the Sunday Market here in Kochi. The other is this: Chocolate-tofu pudding. We had a dinner together once at her apartment in Kochi city in July last year, just before she left Japan for home. I brought, IIRC, some soft tortillas and filling (incl. guacamole) to make chicken burritos, some chicken gumbo in a plastic tupperware, and peanut butter & jelly square I made from the recipe that chika had sent me. Robin bought beer for both of us, and she also made the chocolate-tofu pudding for dessert. It was my very first time trying chocolate-tofu pudding, or tofu-chocolate pudding (I don’t remember which she called it), but anyway, it didn’t scare me ;) I had tried chocolate-rice pudding before in the U.S. and liked it, so I thought the combination of chocolate and tofu could be good, too. Her pudding was not bad at all. Well, actually, just a bit too much aftertaste of tofu, but it gave me an impression of a very healthy dessert. Another Look at the Chocolate-Tofu Pudding Robin and I met for the first time at a bake sale by a musical group in Kochi. After that, we met at some parties and gatherings/events at our locally famous Hirome-ichiba. We even experienced a very “extraordinary” fundraising bake sale together for the same musical group (didn’t we, Robin?) At that time she was teaching at the school for the blind, which was not too far from my apartment, and she spoke pretty good Japanese. Actually, she was good at mimicking our local dialect, too. When she talked to me, she would often mix English, Japanese and Tosa-ben (our dialect) even within one sentence! I believe that contributed to my English grammar getting messed up more and more. ;)　 Anyway, she is such a fun-loving, outgoing woman. I guess what makes me feel very comfortable being with her is that we share the same kind of sense of (sometimes pretty cynical or black) humor and the same kind of ideas about what’s good and important in people and what sucks in life. And we both value our civilized way of teasing each other in order to enhance intimacy. (Right, Robin?) Well, I don’t know what she feels about me... but that’s the way I feel about her. She left Japan last year but came back to visit us this year in April and traveled in Japan for several weeks, I suppose. I was so happy to see her again, but it was worse when I had to say good-bye to her again. Yeah, the 2nd time hurt more. When I promised her to post about her in my blog, I decided to make the chocolate-tofu pudding myself in order to re-visit the memory of our dinner last year. To make this pudding, I googled and picked this recipe. Sure, it’s a healthy dessert indeed. The recipe is on a vegetarian cooking page and the main ingredients are tofu, cocoa and maple syrup! It’s a real guilt-free stuff! The Ingredients I used: Silken Tofu, Van Houten Cocoa and Maple Syrup Though I put good amount of maple syrup and vanilla extract, my pudding had some distinctive aftertaste of tofu, too. I might experiment a bit more to reduce the tofu flavor to the point that I taste just a hint of it. What do you think I should do for that? Add lemon juice? Photo of the Pudding with "Radial Blur" Effect So, Robin, you keep coming back to my blog, OK? I’ll post about our food and life in Kochi more and more to make you homesick (or Japan-sick or Kochi-sick) so that you’ll come back to see us again -- “us” means me and all your friends still in Kochi. Be ready! ;) You seem to be less confident about this from time to time, so I assure you in upper case: WE ALWAYS LOVE YOU!!!