Tofu: Unlocking the Mystery

So I attempted my first recipe including tofu this weekend and we ate it tonight for dinner. I cooked it ahead of time on Sunday. C-Money helped me out. He was skeptical. I have to admit, I was, too.

On the menu, Stuffed Pasta Shells from the book, Clean Foods: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source, by Terry Walters.

The ingredients, Kale, one large onion, firm tofu, mirin, extra virgin olive oil, pasta sauce, basil and parsley (dried).
I had two new ingredients in this dish that I had never used or worked with before. The first, and most intimidating: tofu.
The other, Mirin. It is sweetened sake and I found it in the same aisle in the grocery store as the soy sauce. I cannot figure out how to rotate this picture, so if it bothers you, you can give me instructions on how to do so.

This is what the tofu looked like once I took it out of the package. You may be asking, "what is tofu, exactly?" I'm glad you asked. The ingredients from this package say it is comprised of water, organic whole soybeans and magnesium chloride (which is extracted from either sea water or brine). Apparently (according to a very quick and lazy internet search) tofu is made by coagulating soybeans and then pressing the curd into the blocks like you see below. It was VERY watery. All instructions I have ever seen regarding the preparation of tofu say to wrap the block in paper towels and press to remove excess moisture. There was a lot. In case you are wondering where you can find tofu, I got this in the produce section of Schnuck's grocery store.
Anyway, enough about the weird tofu. I sauteed some garlic and onions in the extra virgin olive oil and mirin. Once the garlic and onions were soft, I crumbled up the tofu and added it to the mix.
I also chopped up that whole big bunch of kale and added it to the party as well. It cooks down, of course, like all other greens.
This is the filling for the pasta.
While I was preparing the filling, I was also cooking some large pasta shells. Once the shells were cool enough to handle, I scooped the mix into shells, and laid them in a casserole dish.
Then, I covered with prepared marinara sauce (organic, of course) and some shredded mozzarella. Terry Walters says to use non dairy cheese, but I am not vegan, so I used the good stuff.

I covered the pasta with foil and stuck it in the fridge so it would be all nice and ready when I got home from work today. The recipe says to bake covered in foil.

at 400 degrees
for 20 minutes
Then, remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes. This is what the finished product looked like...
I had it with a side salad of spinach. Again, I cannot rotate the picture, but you get the idea.
And now for the moment you have all been waiting for: my review of my first ever tofu dish...

When I first bit into the pasta, I thought it tasted good and had a good texture, but it was a little sweet. I thought that it was the tofu that was sweet, and in fact, it wasn't until I posted the ingredients that I remembered the mirin (sweetened sake). I think next time, I'd make it without the mirin. I prefer my Italian-style dishes to be salty and garlic-filled. I added some garlic salt to my serving, and it tasted much better.

Overall: it was a good dish and a great way to add some greens to the diet. When asked, Billbowski replied that the dish was "good." I asked him to guess the ingredients and he said, "spinach?" I told him that the greens were Kale and that the white crumbles were tofu. He then replied that it would be better with chicken. Note: he said it was fine until I told him what it really was. I think I'll tinker with the recipe and keep it in the repertoire in my attempts to reduce the amount of meat we consume, and increase the amount of plant based food (yay for Kale and spinach in one meal!). Note to self: don't tell Billy when I use tofu again.

Finally, I have a quick public apology. In an earlier post (which I would link here if I knew how to do those nifty link things) I complained that grocery stores sucked and that you had to shop at expensive health food stores to eat clean foods. I was wrong. While I am not crazy about the Kroger near my house, I have found that the Schnucks is not bad at all. They have a great produce section with plenty of organic seasonal foods. I had no trouble at all finding the ingredients for my meals this week. They also have lots of organic options for pretty much everything. Yay for Schnucks and yay for me, since Whole Foods is not a convenient weekly trip for me to make.

Next up: Polenta au Gratin.