Monday, September 25, 2006

Experiments in the Kitchen

Ever since moving into my new apartment, I've vowed to be a more adventurous cooker. It's hard sometimes. The last thing I feel like doing after class is making myself food. I'm always hungry and tired, but somehow I make it. The latest in the series of "food purchases to broaden my culinary horizons" was tofu. It was on sale. I like sales.

I used my tofu in two grand experiments. The first was a stir-fry. I sliced the tofu into thin strips and then sauted it in some butter and spices. Then I dumped it into a frozen veggie stir-fry mix and added tequila lime marinade. It was good. The tequila lime was a little over-powering and salty. I should have cut it with some water or juice or something. Or maybe just used less.

Tonight's tofu experiment was much more brave. I decided to make tofu parm. I crumbled up bread and mixed it with flour and spices and then coated the sliced tofu in it. Problem one arose in that the bread was too big despite my best efforts and didn't really stick to the tofu. So I decided to pre-bake it for like 10 minutes to get that nice crunchy coating. This did not work either. So I went ahead and dumped on the sauce, added the garlic, sprinkled on the cheese and baked it for about 20 minutes. The finished product was...nothing like chicken parm. But it wasn't bad either. It just kind of tasted like sauce and cheese with some mushy stuff. Almost the same consistency as mozzarella. So yeah. It really wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd use that procedure again. Next time, I think I'll stick to the established recipes for first tries.

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