BBQ Tofu

Derived from this recipe.

1 package tofu
1 3/4 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Press tofu to dry.  While it's pressing, preheat the oven to 425.  Mix together all the spices in a big mixing bowl.  Add oil & mix into a paste.  Tear tofu into bite-sized pieces, add to spice paste.  Stir until all the tofu has seasoning on it.  Spray a baking sheet with oil, dump tofu onto it, bake for 25 minutes or until you like the texture, stirring every 10 minutes or less.  Dip in BBQ sauce, or toss with sauce.

The spice paste is really tasty & could probably be used for other stuff too (veggies, etc.).

Zesty Sweet Chili Tofu

The cafeteria at work has a very limited selection of things I like.  But one of the few things I was really impressed with was their sweet chili tofu.  It was bright orange, sitting on a heating coil for the 3 hours that lunch was available, and had a slightly weird texture... but it was delicious.  I haven't seen it in a while though, so I decided I had to find a recipe that was like it; this recipe is just like work used to make!

I found this sauce recipe, but naturally I didn't have peppers or garlic in the apartment, so I substituted.  I also only made half the recipe; I find that gooey asian-style sauces like this that have cornstarch in them get gross if you put them in the fridge, so I didn't want too much left over.  My recipe looked something like this:

• 1/4 tsp garlic powder (probably plus a little extra)
• 1/2 tsp (very heaping -- probably closer to 3/4 tsp) red pepper flakes
• 1/8 c white vinegar
• 1/4 c sugar
• 3/8 c water
• 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp water

For the first boiling part, I left it on for way longer than 3 minutes -- it never really thickened up, but I did notice that I'd lost some liquid.  The cornstarch worked really quickly once I added it, and I ended up with this much sauce:

It all fit into the big spoon I had been stirring with, which was about how much I wanted anyway.  This ended up being very spicy; I'd probably use less red pepper if I made it again.

For the tofu, I just chopped up & pressed a block of tofu, oiled the pan & the tofu, then baked it for a little over 30 minutes at 350 then 375 (because the sauce was done and I was hungry), flipping every 10 minutes or so.  It stuck to the pan relentlessly; maybe parchment paper would've helped.  Then I tossed it with the sauce.  It was just the right amount of both, and turned out fantastic (albeit a bit spicier than I'd've hoped).  It would've been perfect with some rice, which I had meant to make while the tofu was cooking but totally forgot.  Will definitely be making this again!

Lemon Tofu

After discovering that birthday cake shots are better without the lemon, I found myself with 1.5 extra lemons in my fridge.  This recipe was made in an attempt to use up 1 of them.  I'm not a huge fan of lemon, so I'm not a huge fan, but the idea here was good and if I liked lemon I'd definitely like this.  It's tasty in its own way.  And the fried tofus aren't bad on their own either.  You could probably swap out the lemon bits for something else.  The one change I'd make is, for the love of god, don't put the broth into the pan with the hot oil.  Just make the sauce in the pot you made the broth in.  Note that they get less crispy really quickly (in the time it took me to write this, they went from being goo-covered & crispy awesome to cold & squishy).

http://www.omgveg.com/lemon-tofu/