Tofu Stir Fry

It's the one ingredient I was really nervous about trying: TOFU! When I mentioned to Jeremy that we were going to have this for dinner he was less than excited about it. He actually didn't say anything, just made the face like something smelled really, really bad. Anyways, I figured if I was going to be a vegetarian I might as well dive and and try one of the staple vegetarian foods.

We love making chicken stir fry so I thought I would try making it like usual but with the tofu in place of the chicken. I knew it was going to have to taste pretty good in order to get Jeremy on board with eating it for dinner.

At the store I wasn't sure which type of tofu to buy but I went with the FIRM because I had tasted the really spongy stuff before and really didn't like it. I probably could have even got the extra firm but went with this this time. I looked online for the best way to cook it and found something called "dry frying".

First I cut a big chunk of the tofu off and covered it in paper towels. Then I put a cutting board on top to drain some of the water out. After about 10 minutes I cut the tofu in triangles and pushed down on them with paper towels to get more water out. You can see how I cut them in the pictures below.

Cooking instructions for Tofu:
-heat a pan on medium heat
-place tofu evenly on the pan with NO oil or butter, just dry
-use a spatula to flip them and move them around so that they don't stick to the pan.
-also use the spatula to squeeze more of the water out as they cook.
-cook until golden brown on each side.

After you have cooked the tofu you can put in in a marinade. I used a mix of soy sauce, brown sugar, hot sauce, rice wine vinegar, salt and pep, and sliced sweet onions. Let the tofu sit in the marinade for 15-20 minutes.

While the tofu is marinading you can cook the veggies. For veggies you can use whatever you want.
I used:
-broccoli
-yellow squash
-zucchini
-sweet onion

Cooking instructions for Veggies:
-heat oil in pan
-throw in veggies and stir in soy sauce (don't put too much because it will become very salty)
- stir and cook until they look done!

About 5 minutes before you are ready to eat heat the tofu pan up on medium heat and put tofu back in pan to reheat. I poured the marinade in the pan as well. Once they are hot take them off and serve!

I made this with plain brown rice.

Me and Jeremy both really loved this! He said that he was tricked into thinking it was chicken. It was a good "beginner" tofu dish!

Enjoy!

Immie