Tofu Tuesday [Saturday?] - Grilled Mint Tofu

As promised, here is the first of my missed Tofu Tuesday posts.

I decided to give grilled tofu a whirl.  As per usual, I scribbled down some ideas as they came to me during the day at work.  How I get from the topic of behavior rating scales to salad...  who knows.

So here's what I made:  Grilled Mint Tofu & Strawberry Spinach Salad

Grilled Tofu:

• 1 block of extra firm tofu - pressed
• Marinade:
• olive oil
• 2'ish tsp agave
• dash of rice vinegar
• cilantro
• mint (dried, but fresh would have been better!)
• pinch of salt

Salad Mix:

• spinach 
• sliced strawberries
• goat cheese

 So,  here's the marinade.  I sliced the tofu into thin triangles, and let them sit in there a bit.

I made sure to coat them a bit before sticking them on the [George Foreman] grill.  I used the little Foreman I bought on Spring Break in college.  I used it TONS then (best grilled cheese maker ever post day on the beach) but rarely pull it out now.  Overall I like a real grill better, but in cases such as this, the Foreman was a nice alternative to have!  Besides, I think the small triangles I cut may have fallen to their firey death on a traditional grill...  So if you're using a real outdoor grill, maybe make the triangles bigger, or perhaps cut the tofu into rectangles that would be more grill grate friendly.  :o)

 Grill the little suckers.  I re-coated them with marinade throughout the grilling process.  PS - They pop up and dance around, so beware of flying tofu!

 So, while that was going, I was thinking that I might need a bit more substance to my dinner, and bread sounded pretty delicious.  Enter, whole wheat oat quick bread.

Here's the ingredients for a small loaf of Whole Wheat Oat Quick Bread:

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1/2 c. flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
• 1 t. salt
• < 1 T agave (since I halved a recipe, it was one of those measurements that wasn't even steven)
• 1/2 T oil (I used olive)
• 1/2 c. milk 

Just because I like these measuring cups.  :o)

Blend the dry ingredients in a food processor to help get the oats nice and fine.  I put in about 3/4 of my oats in to get all nice and dust-like.  I put the rest of the oats in at the end because I wanted to make the bread a bit heartier.

Then add your wet ingredients.

I just mixed them in the cup together before throwing them into the food processor.  Then a took a picture of it because I liked the way it looked.  So much cooler looking in person.

After the ingredients are nice and mixed, I added a handful of chia seeds and the rest of the oats.  Again, I was going for the heartier consistency.

Baked for a bit over 20 minutes (and probably about 2 minutes too long - not the bit too dark points) at 450*F.  It didn't really taste burnt though, nor was it dry, so yay for that!  Just not as purdy in the picture.

Almost ready!

Last element of the dinner - Lime & Mint Salad Dressing
This one was a measure free concoction, however, here is what is in it:

• lime juice
• balsamic vinegar
• dried mint
• dried basil
• dash of olive oil

Kevin and Rudder fell asleep while I was making dinner, and were next to impossible to wake up from their nap.  So I figured I'd give them a few more minutes of sleep before they were dragged into the kitchen for dinner, and read through the Square Foot Gardening book Kevin ordered for me.  I still refuse to put down wooden grid markers, but otherwise I liked some of the ideas. :o)

Ta-da!  Dinner!  It was nice and light, fresh and crisp, and all around a yummy salad.  Even though I used what seems to be a lot of mint, it didn't taste extraordinarily minty to me, but just enough for that nice mint and strawberry taste of summer.  :o)