Mark and I are headed to Charleston for five days. We’d originally planned, overly optimistically, to leave tonight but now plan to leave at the outrageous hour of 6 a.m. (We’re not ordinarily morning people.) (This post brought to you by the letter “O”.) I’d left myself with no real fresh food since I didn’t think we’d be eating here tonight, so I had to throw something together from pantry items and the dregs of the refrigerator.

I did have a package of tofu, fortunately, so that served as the basis around which I worked the meal. I sliced it up and whisked up a marinade consisting of soy sauce, “chicken”-flavored broth, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, and onion and garlic powder. Then I marinated the tofu until Mark got home, about an hour and a half. Then I baked it in the toaster oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-15 minutes on each side.

Meanwhile, I put a cup of millet in a small, heavy pot and poured some of the marinade in (I hate wasting marinade), then topped it off with water, brought to a boil, and cooked until done. In the end, I probably used half marinade/half water.

I’d made Unribs earlier in the week, and I’d made extra barbecue sauce because Mark likes to use it as a dipping sauce throughout the week, so fortunately I also already had some barbecue sauce for the tofu. I slathered some generously over the tofu and returned it to the toaster oven for another 15 minutes or so.

I had some frozen vegetables in the freezer for just a night like tonight. They got sauteed in my cast iron skillet. I’d rather have fresh, but it was good to have them on hand for a case like this.

This was really good for a plans-changed-at-the-last-minute meal, although someone didn’t eat his millet. (When informed millet is an ancient grain that was very good for him, he told me he only eats “new food”, so I told him to throw away his tofu and vegetables. Apparently they don’t count.)

In other news, today is my father’s birthday so in lieu of cat pictures, please enjoy some pictures of my father at my wedding:

That’s sort of a weird picture of him (and pictures of me are always weird), so here he is smiling nicely instead of smirking:

And here I am with my father being a totally normal bride, with my best pig (wearing his own tuxedo):

Happy Birthday, Dad!