Tag: tofu

Marinated Tofu Salad

You know those delicious $3+ flavored tofu products you can get? Sure, they’re tasty, but kind of pricy. They’re also easy to make. Especially if you have, speaking of pricy, the Tofu Xpress. It’s not an essential kitchen tool, but it does make dealing with tofu a bit easier. Before I would just press tofu between two plates with heavy cans set on top. But the tofu would never press evenly so I’d often end up running to the kitchen after the cans fell off the top plate making a racket. This thing squeezes most of the water out of your tofu so it can then soak up whatever delicious marinade you choose.

Vegan Vittles has a set of five different marinades that are all tasty. Most of them can be made from staples. So what I did was press the tofu overnight in the fridge in the Tofu Xpress. The next day, I pulled the tofu out of the press and sliced it into 8 planks. All the ingredients for the marinade were combined in the Tofu Xpress, then the tofu went back in without the press part, just the lid. That marinated on the counter for about an hour. Then the tofu went in the George Foreman grill. And in a few minutes it was done perfectly. You could also pan fry or bake it. Wait, what do you do with all that extra marinade? Reuse it! I threw some sliced tempeh in it to marinade. Two for the price of one!

The salad itself was just whatever I found in the fridge. I did pick up mixed baby greens with salad in mind. There was some kale I’d already cleaned and chopped. Carrots are always on hand. Half a red bell pepper and a roma tomato were tossed in. I dressed it with the tofu marinade drippings that landed in the drip pan for the George Foreman, rice vinegar and a little olive oil. With gomashio and sliced almonds sprinkled on top and some weird sea weed snax I picked up at the farmer’s market.

Stewed Tofu and Potatoes in Miso Gravy

Okay, this isn’t summery AT ALL. It is kind of a comfort food though. Especially if you make drop biscuits and dump the stew on top. This recipe reaches back into Vegan With a Vengeance. Because I am too lazy to make a separate side, I usually just toss some frozen peas into the mix towards the end of the cooking time. Now, I’m weird about mushrooms, and this week I finally got tired of tasting mushrooms after eating this 3 or 4 times. But that’s just my own personal problem.

And those biscuits are awesome if you need a quick bread option to go with a meal.

Tofu “fish” sticks

Back in the day, before I was veg*n, when I was poor and living in my first apartment alone, I used to rely heavily on those giant bags of frozen fish sticks, instant potatoes and frozen peas n corn. Oh yeah, that was also before I really knew how to cook too.

Anyway, every once in a while I think some trashy fish sticks would be good. You know, without the actual fish part. I’ve been eyeballing this recipe in Vegan Lunch Box for years but this is the first time I’ve made it. Of course I whipped up a little tartar sauce to go with it out of veganaise, sweet relish, lemon juice, salt & pepper. Oh wow were these good! Not the bland little fried bits I remember. Heck, not fried at all! On the side, roasted russet potato slices tossed with olive oil, smoked paprika, salt & pepper and Trader Joe’s frozen green beans.

tofu fish sticks

Peanut Butter Baked Tofu

I’ve never been to Rosetta’s Kitchen in Asheville, NC but everyone raves about it and especially the Peanut Butter Baked Tofu. [oh man, sorry folks, that link went bad.] The recipe is crazy simple. My only complaint is that it came out pretty salty, even for me, and I like salt. It’s probably because I used tamari instead of regular soy sauce. Next time I’ll try soy sauce and if it’s still too salty cut the soy sauce with stock for the third try. Bonus, the leftovers made a nummy sammich.

Vegan Breakfast Biscuit

One of the things that’s not really available around here is a good vegan breakfast sandwich. At least, not yet. But you can make your own. And it’s not all that hard, either. Especially with all the great products that are on the market now. I already had a package of Match Vegan Meats Breakfast Sausage left over from the batch they sent me to make holiday loafs. And Chicago Soy Dairy sent me some Teese to play with for their blogger challenge.

So here was my plan. Tall fluffy biscuits. This recipe made the fluffy awesomeness you see in the photo. For the “egg”, I started with Susan’s crustless tofu quiche recipe. I omitted the bell pepper, mushrooms, chives and rosemary and replaced the fresh garlic with a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder since I wasn’t going to fry it up. Then, instead of baking them in a muffin pan, I spread it out in a rectangular baking pan then cut into squares to go on the muffin. The Match was just formed into patties, fried in a pan with only salt and pepper as seasoning. To assemble, the biscuit was split, a couple of thin slices of the Teese creamy cheddar was put on the top half and then I slid it under to broiler to melt. Sausage and tofu egg was placed on the bottom half then everything was put together once the Teese was melty.

These were amazing! I do have a couple of changes I’d make though. I made 3 oz. sausage patties which were a little too much. 2 oz. might be thin enough. I’d try to make the tofu egg a little dryer. Maybe half the soy milk and cook it a little longer. And I’d probably switch to regular cheddar Teese so it would contain a little less moisture.