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Fresh Peach Juice Healthy Drink Ideas

Fresh peach juice is a great cold summertime drink you can make with a summer glow or sunrise effect. 🌅 And if you want to make your drink taste like a peach pie without the fat calories, you can also do that with the steps below…

When you add enough cinnamon, you will get a delicious sweetness pairing that tastes like a peach pie or dessert. 🥧

peach galette to go with fresh peach juice.
A whole wheat peach galette is a whole way to get your peach-fill. 🍑

But you can also keep it cool (and the hot oven off!) with an easy fresh cold peach juice drink.

Just add cinnamon that’s an Ayurvedic balancing spice for Vata that’s calming and sweet. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

There are two common types of cinnamon: Cassia and Ceylon.

For this drink, you’ll want to use the Cassia cinnamon that’s the common cinnamon spice you find in most grocery store spice aisles.

Even the easy to find Vietnamese cinnamon is more like the Cassia type.

It’s the tastier cinnamon version that is great for baking with. Ceylon is the more anti-inflammatory one good to add to drinks like tea or coffee.

And with Cassia cinnamon, this flavor paired drink will transform and turn into a peach pie… and maybe remind you a bit of old fashioned apple pie from the enhanced heavy sprinkle of cinnamon spice… 🥧 You’ll want to mix in a dollop and not a dust.

For the peach juice part: fresh peach juice is easy to make with a blender and when peaches are ripe and super soft. That usually takes time from when you buy from the market.

And that can be a good thing

For a later date juice (or delay in making the juice), you can ripen in a controlled environment…

Put your peaches in your fridge fruit or crisper drawer that’s lower humidity than other parts of the fridge, where fruit will ripen faster and stay fresh. You can preserve your peaches for weeks.

When you’re ready to make your fresh peach juice drink, it will already be ready to serve cold because the peaches are cold.

Quicker Peach Ripening Method:

…Or if you keep peaches out at room temperature in a fruit bowl, they’ll ripen even faster if you’re ready to make your drink as they go from ripe to rot pretty quickly.

This way, you’ll chill your drink after making it.

Either ripening way works. It’s 6-of-one half-dozen the other as we used to say in catering. The mantra is the same and your preference liking.

…Make it slow or fast based on a calendar is the question.

Either way when you start the home fresh peach juice making process, a fresh peach drink can be on your menu as a next day chilled morning beverage instead of mango or orange juice

That’s good for Vata variety.

And with peaches, you can also get a special sunrise effect when you add water that brightens the day. 🌅

A morning sunrise fresh peach juice drink.
A morning sunrise fresh peach juice drink.🌅

The simple steps are below 🍑

You can turn your juice into a refreshing sweet peach-ade with a little lemon juice instead of a tart lemonade.

Peach is an abundant seasonal summertime fruit favorite and staple. It’s bright, juicy, and high in Vitamin A and C antioxidants.

You can also make one other summertime favorite: old-fashioned porch peach sun tea…  that’s a great way to celebrate a summer break! ☀️

Old Fashioned Summer Porch Tea from Fresh Peach Juice

You can take a large glass jar and brew old-fashioned summer tea that’s super easy to make. I’m pretty sure that comes from my adult southern roots living in the Carolinas. 😉

You would basically pour fresh water into a glass jar that has a lid. Then set the tea bags in the jar, using about 4 tea bags for a  6-cup or 3-pint jar.

A classic brisk tea like Lipton gives a super crisp or brisk tea taste.

The bags conveniently have strings, so you can easily tie the bag strings together and hang the labels over the top opening and then secure the lid.

Then set the jar outdoors on a patio that gets sun for at least part of the day. You don’t have to boil water.

And like magic 🪄, you have sun tea in about a day or two. You can leave outside longer for an even more raw, brisk tea taste.

When it’s done, refrigerate or add ice cubes and enjoy!

And finally, with peaches you can use also add fresh diced peaches  into your drink or daytime Sangria mocktail for some zhugh and sunny hues.

How fun in the sun, right? 

And if you’re peach inspired and don’t want to stop there (or still have extra peaches you don’t know what to do with), you can make a peach profiterole that could take the summer peach vibes to a whole ‘nother (baking) level! 🍑

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Fresh Peach Juice Sunrise

Course beverage
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

  • blender

Ingredients

  • ½ cup diced peaches
  • ½ cup water
  • Cassia cinnamon spice to taste

Instructions

  • Blend softened ripe peaches leaving about 1/3" or 1 cm to top of glass. You can add a little water if you prefer less concentrated juice. For peach pie drink: blend in cinnamon spice to taste.
  • For the sunrise effect, add fresh cold water to fill up to the top of the glass. Bottoms up!
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Mind the Gap For Happiness Today

Mind the gap as a metaphor helps us in our lives.

It started out as a carved out message reminder in the London Underground waiting platform to pay attention to the gap getting on the train.

London "Look" message painted on the pavement are like "mind the gap" messages in the Underground.
A London Look painted message is helpful for some who stop to look. 🛑

And all around London you find painted “Look” signs 👀 and messages that can be helpful or at least interesting to look at.

For a brief moment then, we look down at our feet so we don’t misstep.

Most of us have seen these type of signs… or have had the experience of riding a bus, subway, or metro train where for a gap moment we were mindful seeing or not seeing a sign.

The mind the gap written sign is a metaphor for our unscripted happy lives…  putting mindful focus on what’s actually in front of us, and putting emphasis on the love and productive sides of our lives.

Mind the gap metaphors are opportunities for more awareness in our lives (and what they’re becoming).

…Because if we’re living in daily awareness knowing what we’re doing, observing what’s happening around us and how we react, then we’re less likely to slip into the gap in our conscious lives.

The gap could be fear, darkness, or what we don’t want.

In our unconscious sleeping lives or altered state of consciousness in meditation, we intentionally look for falling into the gap calm and silencing the mind moments, so we experience better health and stress calming benefits.

It’s our awake subconscious mind that often adds complication to our lives as we’re moving and taking action, but only partial conscious of what we’re thinking.

To bypass our awake subconscious from derailing our happy outcomes and thoughts, we can ask revealing questions to ourselves:

Are we inconsistent?

Is what we say different than what we actually do in certain areas (because rarely is it all the time)? Or are we projecting onto others when we’re the ones that are going through the projected experience?

Is there a misalignment in our life?

Do we feel disconnected in some way?

Do we lack purpose and meaning and a reason to wake up on time?

These are all opportunities to make internal life shifts that will change our outer habits and happiness to bring more on!

We can look around for signs to get more in tune with our mind, will, and emotion alignment that is our entire soul being.

We can also check in with our our external influenced-internal deeper desires coming from our spirit, Universe, and higher source greater than ourselves.

Our spirit in us never dies as our essence being.

And our thoughts come from higher sources other than our current, past, and future dream thoughts.

We get clues and hints from those around us on our planet and what’s happening to us in our daily lives.

But hints are usually subtle and missed… they’re in the daily miracles and we witness them if we better mind the gap.

I can’t tell you the number of times a day I have a random thought that pops up, and in awareness I notice the external noise in my life repeats the same message or exact words seconds later.

This could come from a television screen, audio on my device, or something I read.

Those aren’t coincidences without meaning.

I use those daily miracle opportunities to mind the gap for a moment to reconnect with my spiritual self and tune out culture.

That helps to connect us to our deeper, higher, and loving selves that block out the fear and unrest sides.

Zooming out, our loving lives are not happenstance and chaos. There’s a productive plan and order. And we’re not alone. Ever.

If we navigate toward our love, then we don’t have to go down dark side trails that lead to rabbit holes that then lead us back to light.

Observe thoughts…

There’s no better way to empower our happiness than changing our thoughts to the better ones we want. It’s also the quickest way to our happiness if we know how to exercise this higher power we possess.

We start by observing or witnessing our thoughts as though we’re an objective third-party to our thoughts.

We’re our own mentor and coach.

This is on top of all the other roles we carry out in our day. So we’re juggling life in the real world and the greater Universe.

And it pays in reward with growth, better life clarity, and alignment.

Then, we can separate ourselves from our negative thoughts holding us back… and non-serving beliefs we could’ve picked up while growing up or along our journey.

To serve us better, we may want to pause and look into those and do shadow work to better understand ourselves while the idea is fresh in mind and so we don’t have to back track.

Then, we can start to take the old beliefs that shaped us and transform them in our happy and evolving better lives when we mind the gap.

A gap question example to ask ourselves:

Do we dislike something in our daily life that we wish were different?

We have better control of our outcome when we mind the gap.

Real Life Example: Why is there a window in our bathroom that we have to clean and make sure that it’s covered so no one peeks in?

Instead we re-write the thought and think: thank you window for being there to give us natural light.

The more daily examples we can flip to the positive, the more we bring light and happiness into our life.

Are we living in joy?

Our subconscious minds, the side that agitates problems, get nourished by feeling bad or pity, so we can end up doing the unhealthy things.

But when we’re lifted up and feeling good, we do the healthy things. And we enjoy more too.

So it’s a double win to find more joy.

That comes about from shutting down bad thoughts in awareness. We’ve saved ourselves wasted time and energy.

Joy is internal and in our control and can be experienced in this moment.

If we find in our free time we’re thinking, I wish I had more time to enjoy… then we’ve missed it because we can focus on enjoying now.

Now is what we have to enjoy.

The glass half or almost full pulls us out of our own misery (that’s our choice).

Doing what it takes to get ourselves to enjoy and feel good again is a healthy priority and can be our goal so we look forward to the rest of our day where we get more than one.

Using our 5 body senses is a good, easy way that we like:

…Maybe we read a good book, watch a feel-good movie, listen to happy music, or do a healthy activity to get there. But we purposefully get there. 👉👈

Then we’re able to forget about time and unproductive thoughts in our happy distraction.

Maybe we do that in quiet moments or in yoga to re-center.

And maybe we go to bed early to start a new day that changes our mood. Or we enjoy a no-butter guiltless snack bite like this honey-glazed matcha lemon coconut cookie.

Honey glazed matcha cream lemon coconut cookie bites.

Those healthy moves turn the tide moment by moment to bounce us back to our productive, happy self.

Then our happy outlook follows and improves, and that helps us to grow our lives, healthy ambitions, and selves.

And we also look forward to creating new ways where we look up and out to make us feel good and accomplished.

New way examples include:

-learn a new skill

-contribute to a new group

-volunteer

-develop our better daily habits

-write out our good intentions for the week/year to come

-strive to become the best we can be or a better person

And in our growth, we can pause to check-in and see where we stand in our pride snapshot that can get in the way of our happy, productive lives at any time even if we’re well on our way.

It’s part of the subconscious mind and ego that never shuts down as long as we’re breathing.

Are we free of pride and selfishness?

We know by the relationships we have with others and ourselves whether it’s going well deep down in us.

We feel good or we get a pit in our stomach when a name or thought arises.

People serve as reflections to our lives. At any time we can mess up with them by not trying or being considerate and doing the best we can.

And more easily we can tell if we’ve created barriers over better communication that may be all we need to provide in better thought re-writes in us.

Pride can show up as many flavors… like this mixed bowl of homemade soft ice cream with avocado ice cream.

Bowl of homemade avocado ice cream with mango and chocolate.

Pride can show up in some situations, and not others. It’s gray to us unless we make it black and white.

But, when we’re observant of ourselves and our lives, we authentically know if we’ve crossed our lines.

We can also ask ourselves these revealing questions:

Do we always have to be right?

Do we feel superior in certain areas or do we gladly welcome in new ideas and continually willing to learn?

Do we feel we’re entitled to certain things?

Do we dishonor people’s time by showing up when or if we show up?

Do we assume what others think or would say before they’ve spoken? Do we jump to conclusions?

Those are all signs that we have layers of unhealthy pride running our show that are hurting us and our relationships.

One improvement way is if we approach our relationships as though we’re a team.

There’s no “I” in team and that helps with our pride checks.

When we do our part independently, and consider interdependence on the team, then we’re on a balanced, healthy track that builds more healthy pride.

We want to do more for ourselves and others.

If we’re willing to compromise, make adjustments, and re-route while letting go of the outcomes, those help us bypass problems and allow in our happy lives.

Letting go of what’s not working is a good mind the gap example.

We gain more clarity and our lives get easier. We don’t get in our own way.

Staying clear keeps us aligned to our best life in our choosing. 🎉

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Watermelon Coffee Drink Idea

Watermelon coffee drink is an idea you can make to use up watermelon leftovers and the reserved juice.

watermelon coffee layered drink melting with fun watermelon star and heart shapes.

The watermelon taste is balanced and add a nice subtleness to coffee that’s stronger than water or ice… afterall, watermelon is 90% water.

Gotta love watermelon water!

…as you’re quenching your thirst and getting watermelon fruit nutrients all-in-one swoop! Oh, and coffee energy that you can sip on all day with cold brew coffee if you choose!

Watermelon coffee has a crisp enhancing flavored coffee taste that’s good and healthy. Its low calories and loaded with Vitamin C, B6, and magnesium.

And unlike morning coffee, this watermelon coffee drink you can sip on all day or until your caffeine quitting time. ⏰

How to make watermelon coffee:

It’s made effortlessly in a day with cooled liquids ready-to-go and to mix together.

This can be half pre-made cold brew coffee and half watermelon juice that comes out from carving a watermelon and saving the liquid..

watermelon coffee
Basic watermelon coffee

And then make a frozen layered drink as fun as this watermelon one if you dare… here you’ll take advantage of healthy plant-based food coloring that give a nice green color (…yes?) and saving part of the watermelon full of fiber that’s usually never eaten or shared.

And you can add to a salad too. 🤔

watermelon coffee plant-based layered drink.
Layered watermelon coffee

You can zhugh your drink with watermelon shapes and watermelon popsicles…

Stay watermelon cool! 😎

watermelon coffee plant-based layered drink.
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Watermelon Coffee Cold Brew (Fun Watermelon Layered Drink)

Make this fun and healthy watermelon coffee drink.
Course beverage
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

  • 1 cup cold brew coffee
  • 1 cup watermelon juice (from fresh watermelon)
  • watermelon inner rind
  • Pandan gel (plant-based for coloring)
  • milk of choice

Instructions

  • Add layer of watermelon juice from a fresh cut watermelon. Freeze
  • Cut the green section of the watermelon (that looks and tastes like a cucumber) into small chunks and blend with water. Add layer to glass and then freeze.
  • Add cold brew coffee with a drop of Pandan gel. Tip: add about half coffee and half watermelon for good taste results. Freeze.
  • Pull out of the freezer and add milk to see the watermelon layering effects!

 

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Light Pina Colada – No Coconut Cream

A light Pina Colada is a dessert drink just like a regular Pina Colada with coconut cream that is usually a star ingredient.

And if you want to save the heavy calories… and still have a delicious copycat tropical drink, you can make my Light Pina Colada version. Recipe below. 💕

I think this is a drink dream come true.💭

And a deliciously light tropical smoothie is a great add-on drink for staying cool in hot weather. 🧉

Actually, any Pina Colada is cooling. This one comes to mind as was one sweet drink that gave tropical vacation vibes. 🏖️

Pina Colada drink poolside.

The problem with this drink is classicas in a classic Pina Colada version is high calories and sugar.

It’s heavy like a meal. And not a good one.

But, the good news is…

Instead, you can make a healthy, frozen light coconut water tropical smoothie version at home that’s delicious and easy to make.

…And it has no added sugar as fruit will serve as the sugar. Sometimes with all our variety choices, we forget coconuts are fruit too. 🥥

And from the fruits (like pineapple), this is a Vitamin C loaded drink that’s good for boosting the immune system. C is also an antioxidant (aka anti-cancer) that’s water-soluble, so it’s unlikely you’ll take too much. 😊

So this vitamin powerful drink, you can make for everyday healthy drinks. And if you want, add your ginger for a punchy smoothie digestif.

It’s your drink!

A tropical smoothie like this pina colada smoothie in American flag colors.

…And it’s cool triple layered one if you dare make the American flag colors 🇺🇸 or another (your) country’s flag colors. You can make any color palette  with your taste palate and fruit rainbow polyphenol colors. 🌈

Sound interesting? 🤔

If so, it’s simple to make this drink…

C’mon, let’s make this…

We start with the flag layers.

Jump to Recipe

Red, white, and blue layered tropical smoothie drink.

Btw, this red, white, and blue one is good anytime of year and especially July 4th Independence Day celebrations. I got a sparkler window show. 🎇

…And then after you’ve made the frozen flag, you’ll end up with this changing colors cool drink as you witness time passing. You may want to make two drinks at a time for yourself.

…One light Pina Colada tropical smoothie you can watch, and another one you can enjoy in the moment.  🍍🍍 Gotta love healthy and happy!

Tropical pina colada smoothie melting.

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Light Pina Colada Smoothie - No Coconut Cream

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

  • frozen blueberries
  • Blue matcha tea, brewed and cooled
  • coconut water
  • pineapple juice puree from a fresh pineapple
  • cherry juice or frozen strawberry juice pressed
  • pineapple wedge (for zhughing)
  • ginger powder or minced ginger (optional)

Instructions

  • Add first layer of blueberries and blue matcha tea to your drinking glass. Freeze.
  • After the first layer is solidly frozen, add coconut water layer. Freeze.
  • Add red juice layer. Freeze.
  • Add pineapple juice on top. Tip: use fresh pineapple chunks and blend up so there's a thicker juice pulp puree that makes this drink good food drama and taste. Add your pineapple wedge. Enjoy and watch the drink melt like moving colored sand!

 

 

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Healthy Protein Foods – Plant Based

Healthy protein foods are a priority at the top of healthy eating and weight loss. They go hand in hand with healthy fats.

And plant based foods are fun to plant into your overall diet because they add color, textures and flavor.

In catering, we always leaned into plant based foods for the color like in a Crudite dish with raw crunchy veggies and the rainbow effects from the anti-inflammatory polyphenols.

…which makes them wildly nutritious and can be the healthy rainbow food on your plate! 🌈

Making them delicious in dishes from their natural bland-boring taste and out of their whole identity or grocery packaging is what makes the tasty edible difference.

Well… when it’s reframed that way, then we can embrace adding more plant-based foods to our healthy diets. They’re sustainable.

But the real problem with veggies if there is one, is that they’re not filling to our bellies.

Most are low calories leaving us feeling hungry. And that can be good for weight loss when balanced in our lives…

Plus adding healthy protein foods to fill in the gaps for us.

Like these examples:

A plant-based tofu “chorizo” healthy protein foods dish doused with balancing Ayurvedic spices.

Tofu qualifies as healthy protein foods.
Tofu chorizo recipe below. 🌱

You can add alliums like onion and garlic that are fiber and good for immunity. Plus green veggies like green bell peppers, and plenty of spices make this a balanced healthy meal.

You can save tomato for your Italian dishes and lean in on the sweet potato in this dish. 🍠

The spices add the flavor and this one has paprika, turmeric, 5 spices, garlic powder, and cumin.

And for healthy proteins, while sausage is usually high in saturated fats, tofu has healthy fats (Omega-3 and unsaturated fat types) and nutrients like magnesium and calcium so it can be a chorizo substitute.

A Three Sisters snack is corn, squash, and beans that has healthy protein foods.
Three Sisters is a corn, bean, and squash trifecta.

Other healthy protein foods include a 3 Sisters dish that celebrates beans at the heart of plant-based healthy protein foods.

This is a complete meal. If you have a corn, beans, and squash trifecta, and also add olive oil or avocado to the meal, then you have all your macros in one. That’s tasty and healthy smart eating.

The stuff I get wildly excited about, plus playing with food. 😊

Whole wheat flour is healthy protein foods that's used to make this homemade plant based pizza crust.

…Like a plant-based homemade pizza that can be made with wholesome healthy whole wheat, and in as much time as it takes to place a pizza order and have it deliveredand it’s funny I would know because for 4 teenage years, I was a pizza maker for Domino’s Pizza.

That would be a long time for a teen in today’s working world… but I had fun working.  People at all ages stay put when they’re happy.

Back then, like most my age I leaned into the carefree happy over healthy.

These days, wiser having tried more food experiences, we can make better choices.

And we can bake and make our own meals where we get to choose ingredients.

Whole wheat flour is slightly higher in protein and fiber than everyday white flour. And that reminder can help move us closer to healthy desires.

Each step starting with food thoughts make us intentional about what we manifest in this Life.

If we source healthy ingredients and foods, then that’s what ends up on our plates and in our bodies.

And the choice of healthy protein foods is a healthy leader for us and our meals especially when we choose the protein foods first.

Too often we have healthy intentions but end up with the happy for any number of reasons. 😋

So balance or a happy medium I like to say is the best approach… and in my world, I lean into the happy tastes and end up doing the healthy without compromising taste…. and happy to give healthy friend advice.

It’s simple when there’s no pressure to eat healthy, so then it’s easier to make the healthy choice most the time because the freedom of choice…

And we can do that when we go out also. There are plenty of healthy and tasty places to eat these days.

Intentional good foods is what happened when I planned events for American restaurants serving Mediterranean cuisines.

Those experiences made me appreciate small plates and family style foods with healthy flavors.

At a Spanish tapas place, small appetizer plates were the only plates they had.

They also had gigantic paella pans (that could’ve held all the small plates inside).

One was the Friday happy hour pan fit for as big as a dining room table.

I remember back when I would blog every day and the people I worked for didn’t even know what a blog was. I just told them it’s marketing and they let me do my thing, haha.

But the people that were coming to the blog, got it.

You all get it. 😀

I shared recipes and special happenings that’s still the way things are today.

And in the Italian, Spanish, and Lebanese restaurants where I was a food insider, one common ingredient used was tomatoes. Often it was a subtle hint as part of a mixture of flavors we call a relish.

Like Meshi Bel Zeit stuffed veggies that was the vegetarian option for Lebanese events.

For home meals, a dish like that would pair well with a common tomato dish that goes well with many healthy protein foods including peas.

Green peas are a good source of healthy protein as are chickpeas. That makes us hap-pea! 🫛

And quinoa is good to add to our healthy protein foods list. It’s another complete meal.

Quinoa has 9 essential amino acids that our bodies can’t make, so you can definitely feel full after a bowl. It’s a food illusion because you’re eating what looks like a cooked grain (starch), but as a pseudo-grain it’s acts more like a protein super food when it lands in your body.

Quinoa and peas are healthy protein foods.
Frozen peas cooked in with quinoa. Hold the salt.

And even more of an illusion when you add quinoa as a breakfast cereal. This would’ve been a great way to start the back-to-school days if we knew about the super grain way back then.

3 Tips for Cooking Quinoa – Healthy Protein food

1.      Use a pan (instead of a pot) for more even cooking.

2.      Toast your quinoa on the stovetop before cooking.

3.     Don’t salt your dish until the end if you use peas so they don’t dehydrate.

You can make a quinoa paella like this one made of quinoa instead or rice, and then add other healthy protein foods on top. This way you can get all your protein grams in that day with a bottomless quinoa dish.

If gram numbers count for you… the easy way to remember is to take your weight and divide by two for a rough idea of how many pr0tein grams you’re looking for.

Quinoa paella would also be deliciously paired with a za’atar cracker.

You can also pair a tasty, cool healthy beverage to go with your healthy dishes.

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Vegetarian Chorizo Tofu Dish with Spices

Course Breakfast, lunch
Cuisine American, vegetarian
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

  • 1 package tofu, firm or extra firm
  • spices: paprika, five spices, turmeric, cumin and onion powder (or fresh onion)
  • frozen peas

Instructions

  • Take tofu out of package. Drain water and place on a pan. Break up tofu with a spatula into small crumbles.
  • Turn on med-high heat for a few minutes.
  • Add balanced Ayurvedic spices to taste: paprika, five spices, turmeric, cumin and onion powder.
  • Add frozen peas. Tip: do not add salt while cooking, so peas don't dehydrate.
  • Turn down heat and cook for another 15 minutes or so, until tofu is firm.
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