tofu!

for christmas, my dad got me a gift certificate for two cooking classes at a place in new york that runs lots of vegetarian classes.  the only other cooking class i've taken was a baking class in atlanta that was awesome (another gift - from my duke friends), but most cooking classes are meat-centered, and we know that isn't my thing.  so good work to dad for finding a vegetarian-friendly place!

this week i took my first class: making and cooking with tofu!  if you are not a vegetarian, you probably have no reason to eat tofu, but let me tell you that i think tofu is delicious and will order it whenever i see it on the menu (mostly at thai or chinese restaurants).  uncooked tofu tastes like nothing, but when you cook it well it is amazing.

let me first say that we were partnered up in this class to make tofu and then to make recipes, and my partner was a librarian and i am a teacher and we immediately realized our joint desire to make the BEST DAMN TOFU IN THE CLASS.  teachers and librarians are rule-followers and pleasers.  our tofu turned out the best and we were VERY proud of ourselves.

making tofu is like making cheese: pureed soybeans are mixed with water, boiled, and then an acid is added to them and it splits into what is basically curds and whey!

separating into curds and whey:

packing our curds (tofu!) into a tofu press:

weighing it down to press out the water and push the tofu into a firm block:

my half of our block of tofu!  it looks JUST like store-bought tofu, and tastes just as good, if not better.

i was probably the only person getting onto the subway with a block of tofu in a bag, but whatever.

then we cooked with tofu!  we used store-bought tofu to cook with so we could take our precious homemade stuff home.

pouring wine to have with our feast:

appetizer: tofu in dashi (that's the broth) with tempura vegetables:

meal! from top left: pressed tofu with garlic and mint and quinoa, spinach mushroom quiche (with tofu instead of eggs - i made this one - SO GOOD), mango salsa, baked tofu with lemon and butter sauce, and spicy hashed bean curd with pepitas (pumpkin seeds).

it was a feast!

the quiche i made isn't going to fool anyone into thinking it's the "real" thing, but it was delicious.  that's the thing about vegetarian cooking: if you want tofu to taste like meat (or eggs, if you're using tofu instead of eggs), you will fail.  you have to think about your meal differently and then you will be happy.

hooray for a fun cooking class!  thanks, dad-o!  next week: the second class i signed up for is learning how to make homemade pizzas.  perhaps a little more exciting to the audience of this blog!