Tofu Tuesday - Marinara goes Soy

Please excuse this interruption from strawberry week to bring you Tofu Tuesday.  We will resume strawberry'ness later today.  :o)

This recipe didn't exactly work out as planned, BUT was still good.  :o)

Creamy Tofu Marinara Sauce:

• can (or jar) of tomato sauce
• 3/4 block of firm tofu
• handful of garlic cloves
• 2+ cups of spinach
• [1 oz. cream cheese]
• red wine

Here are the stars of today's Tofu Tuesday recipe:

First, roast the garlic cloves (I use olive oil over medium heat)

Leftover cheap wine from a while ago.

When your garlic is looking nice and roasty, add your fresh spinach and mix around to coat in olive oil.  Sometimes I add a bit of salt and pepper at this point.

Once the spinach is wilty, add the tomato sauce.

Then add in the tofu [ok, here I think that the better plan would have been to process the tofu and tomato sauce, THEN add it to the spinach and garlic...  next time...).  Then add in some red wine and spices (I used rosemary, oregano, and basil).

Since the wine is out, you may as well drink some...

Since I missed the mark on making the marinara creamy by way of tofu, I added a little bit of cream cheese to make it creamier.

Mix with spaghetti and voila!  So, this didn't end up as intended, BUT it's kind of like a creamy marinara with tofu crumbles.  Ya know, kind of like a meat sauce, but instead of meat, it's tofu.  It tasted just dandy like this, but I still want to try to make creamy marinara by way of tofu...

The next day, I used some of the leftover marinara for a dipping sauce.  But why just use plain ol' bread?  [sidenote: I never ever used to start sentences with the words but or and, but in this blog, I do it all.the.time!  It kind of bothers me, but it just seems to flow better when you break some grammatical rules :op ]

I took the sliced baguette and spread a small amount of olive oil, then pesto on each side.  Next I coated each side with finely grated (as in I used my micro-plane grater) parmesan, then stuck them in a pan pre-heated over medium heat.

Flip.

Eat!

Yummmm!  This will be a repeat.  So simple, so fast, so good!

Tofu Tuesday - Pesto Parm Tofu

Still on the weekly tofu kick.  :o)

So, last Tuesday I had a tomato and two bitty zucchinis that I needed to use up.  So I was thinking some kind of pasta veggie goodness... but how to incorporate tofu?  I had seen something about pesto and tofu, so I just went with it and mixed this and that together until I had dinner.  :o)

There isn't so much a specific recipe, but here's what I used:

For the veggie pasta:

• Roma tomatoes
• Zucchini
• Cloves of garlic
• Spiral pasta 
• Olive Oil

For the pesto parm tofu:

• Extra firm tofu
• Pesto
• Olive Oil
• Grated parmesan
• Breadcrumbs

So first things first.  Get some of that liquid out of your tofu (using either a press or ya know, school psych books.  Whatever works for ya!)   I let this dehydrate for about 30 minutes while I shoveled snow INTO my driveway.  Yup, gotta love that you spend all Fall and Winter shoveling snow OUT of your driveway, just to throw it back in during the Spring.  [It's all melted now!!! Yay!!!!]

Cut up your tofu into little cubes.

 I used a spoonful of pesto and a little bit of olive oil to coat the tofu.

Then picked up the [hard as a rock] heel of bread that Kevin made a few days earlier.  It was delicious when we had it, but then sat out not super well covered, so it got pretty hard.  Instead of using my canned breadcrumbs, I opted to crush this sucker down into breadcrumbs.  Waste not, want not, right?

Combine the breadcrumbs and some grated parm in a bowl to dip your pesto covered tofu cubes into.  Coat on all sides.

Place on a cooking sheet and roast for 30 minutes @ 450*F.  I suppose I should have turned them half way through, but that seemed like quite a hassle since they are so small, so I just didn't.

In the meanwhile...  Roast up the cloves of garlic (I just did mine stove top with some olive oil)

 Get your pasta going (I used whatever I had left - I believe it was a combination of Wacky Mac and quinoa noodles)

 Chop up your veggies that you want to put in with the pasta.

 Cook the noodles to al dente.

While you're waiting, may I recommend playing catch the noodle with your pup?

Missed it!

Allllllllllmost!

Got it!!!

 Saute your zucchini in a bit of olive oil.

I decided to roast my tomatoes before putting them in the pan with the zucchini and garlic.  I just hate mushy tomatoes, and this helped them hold up a bit more.

 Mix your pasta in with the zucchini, garlic, and tomatoes.  A bit of ground black pepper is a nice addition.  :o)

I put the roasted tofu on top of the pasta, then sprinkled (surprise surprise) some goat cheese on top.

YUM!  Had it for left overs 3 times.  Easy, cheap, and delicious.  :o)