Get prepared for a feast!

About a week ago, I saw a picture of breaded tofu steak that was cut in a slanted way, and it looked so good I had to try it. All of this may take an entire afternoon to make but it is SO WORTH IT because it tastes so divine!

But I never thought having tofu on its own was much fun, so I’ve made a couple of other things to go with it.

I recommend that you do the tomato and onion flaxseed bread first, because that takes the longest. But if you want to spend a while drying off your tofu, you can try doing those around the same time.

Lately, I’ve been doing my cooking a little differently. Those of you follow my blog may have noticed that I usually cook two things a day, and I find that a little stressful when I pile all of that in the afternoon. I usually wake up around 9 or 9:30 if I have a good sleep, I find that if I spend the hour or so cooking something first up (like a simpler dessert) before I do my hour treadmill, I can really concentrate on making a big meal in the afternoon.

For anyone who may want to blog or cook more a day, I find what works really well is to plan out what you’re going to make the next day, make a prototype recipe, and then do the easy one in the morning, then take a break (to exercise or do whatever), then focus on the long one in the afternoon. I have never been able to do things well when I have to multitask, so I find this works so brilliantly.

I just love how the tofu totally misleads people in thinking it’s actually NOT tofu!

Please be aware that if you’re using a blender, you have to be really careful with the tomatoes and onions, because you may accidentally mush it too much. I think it’s best to use a food processor if you have one.

Tomato Onion Flaxseed Bread

5 ripe Roma tomatoes
1 small red onion
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes in olive oil and Italian herbs
1/2 cup golden flaxseed meal
2 tablespoons brown rice flour
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan/sea salt

Preheat oven to 320°F (160°C).

Chop the Roma tomatoes, red onion and garlic in relatively small pieces. They don’t have to be tiny but it will help with the chopping process.

Put all the chopped vegetables and sundried tomatoes in the blender (or food processor) and pulse it briefly to chop it up. DO NOT PUREE IT! It’s important that if you’re using something like Vitamix, you pulse it for a second quickly, then stir, and pulse until most of the stuff is chopped but not a complete mush.

Pour the mixture into a fine mesh sieve and squeeze out about a cup of juice. You can keep the juice in a container to use as broth for other things! (It will be a total waste to throw it out.)

Pour the chunky mashed vegetables in a large bowl and add the flaxseed meal, brown rice flour, olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, basil, paprika and salt. Stir until everything is well mixed.

Align baking parchment paper on an 9×13 inch oven tray and grease the baking paper with non-stick cooking oil.

Pour the mixture on the baking tray with parchment paper underneath, and spread it out across the entire tray, so the layer is nice and thin, and even.

If you want the bread to be thin and crunchy, you will need to use a larger oven tray so the layer can be thinner. It will take shorter time to bake so you MUST check every 10 minutes or so after it’s been baking for 25 minutes, because the bottom may burn easily.

Bake in the oven for 50 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes (depending on the thickness). Allow it to cool before cutting it up. Be careful though, some thinner parts may burn, so every 5 minutes or so after it’s been baking for 40 minutes.

(If you are patient, you can put this in a dehydrator or turn it to the lowest setting in your oven and wait a few hours).

Baby Spinach Salad

2 cups baby spinach
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
A few sprinkles Himalayan/sea salt
A few sprinkles freshly ground pepper

Add all the ingredients in a bowl and toss and turn it around until the spinach leaves is coated by everything pretty evenly.

Grilled Breaded Tofu Steaks

1/2 block firm or extra firm tofu
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon miso paste
1 teaspoon sesame oil/extra light olive oil
1/2 teaspoon pure maple syrup
1/4 cup high quality breadcrumbs* (I used Trader Joe’s organic bread crumbs)

*Note: By high quality breadcrumbs, look for ones without a lot of added oil and saturated fats.

Cut half of a regular block of tofu out and squeeze out as much water as you can without breaking the tofu. Once water is squeezed, use some paper towels to get more water out from all sides.

Carefully cut the tofu block in three layers, then slice across to make 6 small rectangles. (But you can really cut them in any sized pieces you want). You will see that more water will emerge from the middle, so once again, get more paper towels to squeeze out even more water.

You may even want to leave it out for a little while to dry off. The more water you squeeze out, the better the outcome.

In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, tomato paste, miso paste, sesame or olive oil and maple syrup and stir until the sauce is even.

In a separate shallow dish, pour the breadcrumbs on it. I used Trader Joe’s.

Dip the tofu steaks in the sauce, then quickly coat them with breadcrumbs. Do this to each of the tofu steaks.

Spray some non-stick cooking oil on a ribbed grill pan and lay the tofu steaks neatly on the pan.

Turn the heat on medium high (between 5-6) and cook the tofu on one side for about 10-13 minutes until you see it brown, then flip it over as carefully as you can, and cook the other side for another 6-10 minutes until the other side has browned as well.