Last Sunday night I baked some tofu so I would actually eat the tofu that’s been sitting in my fridge for over a week. I like tofu, but have never actually been successful cooking with it (except for a homemade protein bar), not that I’ve tried more than once. My first try was a disaster because I didn’t realize you’re supposed to press the liquid out before cooking it. It’s just kind of spongy and gross if you miss this step.
Since then I’ve baked TJ’s pre-marinated and pre-pressed tofu, but this time i was ready for the real thing.
I found the best way for pressing was to wrap the tofu in a lot of paper towels and place in a bowl, then press it with another bowl, so it fits inside the first bowl, and press with heavy hardbound cookbooks. I did this for about 30 minutes, but I’ve heard you can do it for as little as 15 minutes. Being anal about the moisture that might still exist, I manually pressed more paper towels onto the top and bottom of the tofu one last time before marinating.
I made two different marinades, but I’ll just share one for this post. I used the ingredients from Caitlin’s Perfect Baked Tofu, but didn’t follow measurements exactly and didn’t follow the directions at all because I am somehow incapable forgetful of reading directions once I know the ingredients.
Basically I just dumped all the ingredients on the tofu, except the sesame seeds, then used a spatula to evenly distribute the mixture over the tofu, rather than make the marinade prior. I used half the amount of chili powder and just pressed some sesame seeds on the tofu rather than measure out a Tbsp. I also sprayed the tofu heavily on all sides with olive oil from the Misto before putting the other ingredients on instead of measuring out the olive oil. I left my tofu in block form, rather than cubed. I cut the tofu in thirds and only marinated 2/3 of the tofu with this recipe.
Because I left the tofu in block form, it required more cooking so I cooked it at 400 degrees F for 45 minutes, rather than the 30 minutes in the original recipe.
Last night, I made my very first tofu sandwich with my very first attempt to marinate and bake my own tofu.
I toasted two slices of Ezekiel and warmed the tofu in the microwave. I then thinly cut some jalapeno havarti and placed on one of the slices of toast, topped it with the tofu, and lastly with some spinach.
This may be my new favorite sandwich. Soooo good.
Between the chili powder and the spicy jalapeno in the havarti, there was some heat in this sandwich, but just enough to make it delicious, not overpowering.
For dessert I decided to whip out the TJ’s peanut flour again. I combined Greek yogurt, honey, and 2 Tbsp. of peanut flour and mixed well. Then I topped with a bit of Uncle Sam cereal, pepitas, sunflower seeds, and mixed dried berries.
I spent the rest of the night lying in bed with Rascal reading The Help, which is really good. I’ve had several people recommend it to me, so when Kath offered it up to the first taker last weekend after reading it herself, I jumped at the chance. It’s a very easy read and I love it because it’s historical fiction and about race relations in the South. Very very interesting. There’s more reasons why I’m really digging this book, but I’ll wait until I’m finished with it to completely address everything.
Any body else reading a really good book right now? I love recommendations! Maybe I should think of directions as recommendations so I actually read them. 😉