Amarand Journal

Now *this* is the way to do tofu!

I have tried to make decent tofu for years.  It’s always been fairly daunting to me, though.  First, there are all those different kinds:  silken, firm, extra firm, silken firm…  ACK!!  The old me would say, “Screw it—we’re having chicken tenders instead.”  Unfortunately, with the whole vegan lifestyle, the chicken thing is pretty much out now.  And so commences my ongoing battle with tofu.

After spending entirely too much time on VegWeb.com (I swear, it’s the site of the gods for new vegans—we probably would have starved these last few weeks without them), I finally figured out what I’ve been doing wrong.  You see, I thought it was enough to just drain the liquid out of the package of tofu and go to town.  Little did I know that even extra firm, pre-cubed tofu can turn into a crumbling, sad mess unless you press the bejesus out of it first.

For those of you who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, here’s a quick tutorial:

1.    Take tofu out of package and drain the excess liquid.
2.    Fold up some paper towels and put the tofu on top of them (preferably on a cutting board or something).
3.    Put more paper towels on top of the tofu.
4.    Place a weight (I used a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup filled halfway with water) on top of the tofu.
5.    Walk away and forget about it for at least 30 minutes to an hour.  Or do what I did:  leave it pressing like that while you go to the store and get away from the kids for a couple of hours.

ED. SG – She left the kids with me while she went to the store.  She IS a good mother!

Ta-da!  Perfect tofu!  Finally a happy tofu party in my skillet!  ☺

I made the lovely concoction pictured here (I took the picture myself, I might add.  Rock-solid perfection on the first shot.  Yay me!!).  I am so ridiculously proud of finally kicking some tofu butt and having it look like stir-fry and not like scrambled egg whites.  This was a super quick throw-together-what-we-have-on-hand kind of dinner.  Just a huge green onion—courtesy of our CSA farmer friend—some minced garlic, and asparagus.  I marinated the tofu in some Bragg’s aminios for a little while and then threw it in with the veggies with some sweet/spicy Thai sauce.  And another thing I have learned about tofu:  it’s practically impossible to overcook it.  Good to know.  Serve that over Trader Joe’s frozen brown rice (it really is about the most amazing thing in the world–everyone should have this stuff in the freezer; you’d never want Minute Rice again!), and life is peachy keen.  In the end, it was a quick, tasty, easy dinner in less than 10 minutes (minus the two hours of shopping/tofu pressing).

We’re putting kids to bed early tonight so we can watch Earthlings in relative peace.  It’s really not kid-appropriate anyway—though if I really wanted to push the whole vegan ideal on them, this would probably be the way to do it.  I really don’t want to give the kids nightmares, though.  They have enough issues as it is already.