My Tofu Experiment

Recently, while eating at a buffet, I had the most delicious tofu ever. And every time I've been back there, I've had this amazing tofu and it's absolutely fabulous. So I decided to try to figure out what they did and recreate it, and this is what I've come up with so far:

1 block extra-firm tofu, rinsed and drained
1 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp tamari
4 Tbsp teriaki sauce

Cut tofu into 12 logs. Put them in an airtight container with the remaining ingredients and marinate for a day or two or three or four.

Heat a skillet. Dump the tofu and marinate together into the pan and fry. Move the tofu around over and over again to prevent sticking and make sure the sauce is coating the tofu well.

Serve.

This was very popular with the kids. Even family members who 'hate' tofu gobbled it up.


This, however is not how the buffet tofu tasted, even though it was good. I am going to keep on experimenting.

My Cooking Philosophies

First of all, almost everything tastes better with garlic. And when you add fresh garlic to something my philosophy with that is: the more the better. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dish where I said, ‘oh this has too much garlic.’ I have eaten things where someone else eating the same dish has said, ‘this has a lot of garlic,’ and I barely noticed it. Bring it on, I say, when it comes to garlic. Of course there are certain things that you should never add garlic to, like desserts and sweet things, or anything that isn't cooked. (I am talking about cooked garlic here.) But when cooking things for a meal I ask myself: could this use some garlic, even if it’s not always used here? Very often the answer can be yes.

            Second, when it comes to salt, less is more. It is very easy to over-salt something and once it’s in the food you can’t get it out. It’s best to add a little at a time, but not too much. There are those people who say that salt makes things taste better, but I say not true. Salt in moderation can enhance flavor, but it can also make something taste like, well, salt. I don’t want to have my food taste like salt. I want my food to taste like what it is, not anything else. Yes, a little salt can make some things taste worlds better, like potatoes for instance. I think that potatoes are the one food that begs for salt. I can’t eat a potato these days without it. But even then it should taste like a potato, not like salt. But overall, a little salt is fine, but that’s it. 

            Third, when it comes to children, there are a lot of tricks that can be used to get them to eat vegetables. (This works well on adults, too, if you have any of those around who don’t like to eat healthy things.) Usually you can just add the vegetables to foods that they already like. For example, my children at one point claimed a great hatred, not just distaste but intense hatred for peas. They announced that they would never eat a pea, not in a million years, yuck, yuck, yuck, etc. For quite a while I didn’t ever feed them any, but one day I put some in with their macaroni and cheese, one of their favorite dishes. They gobbled it up. And never said a word of complaint about it. They finished every last bite of it, too. a couple of weeks later they announced again their great intense hatred for peas when I told them they had eaten some recently and didn’t seem to mind it at the time. Their eyes became wide and their chins dropped. They looked almost pale. No, no, no, they insisted, we would never eat peas, yuck, yuck, yuck.  You must be making a mistake Mommy because we don’t eat them. I then told them about the macaroni and cheese. What did you think those little round green things were anyway? I asked them. They thought for a few seconds. Then the light bulbs went off. You mean to say we ate them?! I became convinced that they had not known what peas even were but had decided to hate them anyway before this incident. But after that they ate peas with no problems. 

            Another trick is to take vegetables and grind them up and mix them in with a sauce. This works well with spaghetti sauce or any pasta sauce. I found a recipe recently for a baked macaroni and cheese (still a favorite around here). For the sauce, you boil some carrots and cauliflower and then grind them up in a food processor with a little cheese – the really good kind – and that makes the cheese sauce that you mix with the pasta. It looks and tastes like cheese sauce, but better because you’re using good quality cheese. And you can’t tell that the veggies are in there. Brilliant.

          Another kid trick: sugar. Kids are so used to highly processed, chemically laden foods that they expect that pow of flavor with every bite of whatever they eat, since that’s their experience with the highly processed foods. I say if you want to eat more naturally, to take them away from that experience and bring them into the experience of tasting real food, try slipping some sugar into some dishes. They’ll never know. But they’ll like the taste of whatever it is all the more. One example of this is pasta sauce. I put in a tablespoon or so of sugar into the sauce to make it a bit sweeter. They think my sauce is great – not because it’s anything special (in my humble opinion) but because of the sugar. Try it sometime. You can always wean them off of it slowly, if you want to, but that only works if you don’t get used to it yourself.

Cauliflower Mac 'N' Cheese

This is a new family favorite. It gets regular requests.

1 med. Head cauliflower, core discarded, florets cut into 2-in. pieces

4 med. Carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

1 c. vegetable broth

¼ cup (4 oz) cream cheese

1 tsp Dijon mustard

Pinch cayenne

4 oz block Gruyere cheese, shredded (about 2 cups)

½ tsp salt

16 oz gluten-free elbow macaroni

3 cups broccoli florets

2 med plum tomatoes

¾ cup Parmesan cheese

1)  Heat 8-quart sauce pot of salted water to boiling.

2)  Add cauliflower and carrots to boiling water. Cook 15 minutes or until very tender.

3)  Meanwhile, in food processor, combine broth, cream cheese, mustard, cayenne, 1 ½ cups Gruyere, and salt.

4)  Remove cauliflower and carrots from pot when done and place in food processor. Puree until very smooth.

5)  Add pasta to the same sauce pot of boiling water. Cook half the time the label directs. Add broccoli during the last minute of cooking.

6)  Drain. Return to pot. Stir in cauliflower sauce and half of the tomatoes. Spread in shallow baking dish (like a lasagna pan).

7)  Top with remaining cheeses and tomatoes. Bake 35 minutes or until golden brown on top and heated through.

 

from Good Housekeeping magazine, September 2012, p. 151

Mexi-cam

This is a recipe Cameron made up (hence the name) because of his love of Mexican food. It's a regular staple at our house. There's not too many leftovers when we make this and what leftovers there are don't stick around too long. Similar, yet not to be confused with our Mexi-Mom recipe.

1 can of fat-free refried beans
2 cups rice
1 to 1 1/2 pounds ground meat OR precooked meat such as chicken or steak, chopped into small bite-sized pieces
salsa
2 cups shredded Mexican cheese
1 Tbsp taco seasoning
salt
Toppings of your choice


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
 
Lightly oil a lasagna-style pan. Spread refried beans in the pan.

 
Cook rice in 4 cups water and add 1 to 2 Tbsp taco seasoning and some salt.
 
Cook meat (if not using meat already cooked).
 
Spread the cooked rice into the pan in one layer.

Spread the cooked meat into a layer on top of that.

 
Spread a layer of salsa on top of the meat.

Top with 1 1/2 cups of the cheese.

 
 
Bake in oven 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Yummmyyyyy.....

 
You can prepare this dish ahead of time, cover and refrigerate. If you do it this way, you'll have to increase the baking time to about 40 minutes.

To serve:
Place corn or tortilla chips on each plate, top with a generous portion of the casserole. Then add Mexican-type toppings of your choice: shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped onion, the rest of the shredded cheese, hot peppers, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, or whatever you like. Eat like nachos.

Meatloaf

This is an old Betty Crocker recipe I've been making for years. It is a standard in our house.

1 1/2 pounds ground meat (beef or turkey)
3/4 cup oats
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 small onion chopped small
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp rubbed sage
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup ketchup or barbecue (BBQ) sauce

Mix all ingredients except ketchup or BBQ sauce.

Spread mixture in loaf pan

and top with ketchup or BBQ sauce.

Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for one hour and about 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes. Slice and serve.

Makes about 6-8 servings.


Veggie meatloaf: Increase salt to 1 1/2 tsp. Mix in one small green bell pepper, chopped, 1 medium carrot, shredded, and about 4-6 medium mushrooms, chopped. Omit ketchup/BBQ sauce. During the last five minutes of baking time, take it out of the oven and put tomato slices on top, then put it back in the oven to finish cooking.

Old-Fashioned Baked Beans

from the cookbook Vegan Planet, p. 292

This is a quicker version of the traditional baked bean recipe, and every bit oh, so yummy.  Serve with cornbread and some slaw.

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small yellow onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp cayenne
one 14.5 ounce can tomato puree (or tomato sauce if you can't find puree in this size can)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp molasses
1 Tbsp prepared yellow mustard
1 1/2 Tbsp tamari or other soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar)
salt and pepper
1 cup dried pinto beans, soaked overnight then cooked OR two cans of beans drained and rinsed

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Heat olive oil in medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, cover and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
• Stir in chili powder and cayenne.
• Add tomato puree, sugar, molasses, mustard, tamari and vinegar and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until slightly reduced, about 15 minutes.

• Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Mix in beans.

• Place mixture into lightly oiled 1 1/2 quart baking dish.
• Cover and bake 20 minutes. Serve hot.

serves 4 or so

Tofu Burgers

1 package firm or medium tofu
1 onion
oil
1/2 cup wholewheat or buckwheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal or rice flour
1 Tbsp miso

• Drain and rinse tofu a few hours ahead. Squeeze as much water out of it as possible (for tofu tips, see 'A Word About Tofu' in my Dragon Bowl post).

• Chop onion and saute in a drizzle of either olive oil or veg oil in a large, flat, preferably non-stick pan.

• (Let the onion cool at least a little bit before going on to the next step.)
• Place onion in a food processor. Crumble in tofu and add remaining ingredients.

• Turn on food processor to blend. Stop when it becomes a ball of dough. This should take less than a minute.

• Take your large, flat, preferably non-stick pan and put about 1/8 to 1/4 inch of veg or canola oil in it. Turn on the heat and let it heat up for a few minutes. (You can do this step while blending the tofu mixture.)

• Scoop out the tofu mixture and form into patties, making sure they're around 1/2 inch thick. Fry in oil, about 10 minutes on each side. They will be golden brown. mmmm.....yummy.....

• Drain on a plate lined with several layers of paper towels.
• Serve with any toppings or condiments you like. We like ketchup, mayo, and sliced tomatos.

Makes about 6-8.