For those of us who cook, tofu is not an everyday ingredient.
While many people who eat tofu use it as a meat substitute, you do not have to be a vegetarian or vegan enjoy it.
I made tofu stir-fry and chocolate tofu pie, both of which taste as though they were not even made with tofu.
Tofu stir-fry
First, you need to make the sauce. Mix the broth, rice wine, soy sauce, cornstarch, sugar and crushed red pepper in a bowl.
Set the sauce aside and cut the tofu into cubes. Pat it dry and add it to the remaining 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and toss it.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan with medium heat and cook the tofu for about 3 minutes on each side or until it has turned light brown.
Stir it occasionally so it does not burn.
Move the tofu to a separate plate and heat the rest of the oil.
Add the minced garlic to the pan, then add broccoli and water. Stir this for 2-4 minutes.
Pour the sauce back into the pan and mix to make sure it covers everything.
Now add the tofu back to the pan and mix it in with the broccoli and sauce.
The stir-fry is best served over egg noodles.
The spices and sauce give it a hardy and sweet flavor.
Ingredients:
-½ cup of vegetable broth
-¼ cup of rice wine
-3 tbsp. soy sauce
-3 tbsp. cornstarch
-2 tbsp. sugar
-¼ tsp. of crushed red pepper
-1 package of firm tofu
-¼ tsp. salt
-2 tbsp. canola oil
-1 tbsp. minced garlic
-1 tbsp. minced ginger
-6 cups of broccoli florets
-3 tbsp. water
Chocolate tofu pie
Before you begin, you need to halve all of your ingredients so it will all fit in a food processor.
Even if you get it all to fit in the food processor, it will not be able to mix everything at once so split it up.
Mix the first half of all the ingredients in the food processor and blend until it is a liquid.
You will know you are done mixing when the ingredient begin to look like a chocolate mousse.
Pour the first half in a large bowl. Mix and blend the second half of the ingredients.
Then pour the liquid into the same bowl as the first half of the ingredients.
Once all the ingredients are together, pour the liquid into the pie crust and let the pie sit in the fridge overnight.
The pie takes little time to prepare and is enough to feed several people.
You can’t taste the tofu, so no one besides you will even know it is in there.
Ingredients:
-3 cups of firm tofu
-1 cup of butter
-1½ cups of sugar
-¾ cup of dry cocoa powder
-2 tsp. vanilla extract
-¼ tsp. salt
-½ cup milk
-1 graham cracker crust
Anne Dawson is an intrigue writer for The Plainsman. She can be reached at intrigue@theplainsman.com.
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