Posting everyday was a bit much for me. The change in the weather has been a drag. This time of year is always difficult emotionally, and I just haven't felt up to doing much of anything. In the passed few weeks, I've barely cooked at all, which is definitely out of the norm for me.
As my final post in VeganMoFo, I decided to tell the story of my first time with tofu.
Having been a vegetarian for 4 years now, I feel like I can consider tofu to be a dear friend. But our relationship was not always a good one, and it had a very rocky beginning. I would also like to declare the following statement for anyone who was unsure: It is perfectly easy and acceptable to be a vegetarian or vegan and not like or use tofu. It's interested how many people remark "I don't like tofu" whenever I mention that I am a vegetarian. For the longest time, neither did I. I would also like to note that tofu is not just for vegetarians. It's its own food, not always a subsititute for meat. Anyway, I digress.When I first started thinking about where my food came from, and toying with the idea of vegetarian/veganism, I spent a lot of time researching on the internet how I could make animal-free versions of some of my favorite foods. Being that my pre-veg signature dish was lasagna, I didn't know how I'd ever make a delicious vegetarian lasagna, much less a vegan one. How would I ever replace ricotta?!
The internet informed me that vegans used tofu in place of a ricotta filling in a lot of recipes. Unfortunatly, I never read any of those recipes. At that point in my cooking career, I didn't own any cookbooks, and never really cooked from recipes. I just made things up as I went along, and the results were always delightful. Why, then, would I need someone else's recipe? (Sidenote: I still love experiementing on my own, but reading cookbooks has done so much to mature me in the kitchen) Still not sure what to do about all the meat I used to use in lasagna, I opted instead to make stuffed shells for my first time with tofu. And I made the 2 typical first timer mistakes. First off, I used silken tofu. It was the only kind I had ever seen. I didnt even know regular tofu existed. Secondly, I stuffed the shells with only crumbled up silken tofu. No seasonings. No nutritional yeast. No lemon juice. Just plain silken tofu.
Overcooked pasta shells stuffed with plain tofu, covered with the cheapest jarred spaghetti sauce. As you can imagine, they tasted terrible. I was so disappointed. I told my then vegan roomate that I had made vegan stuffed shells with tofu, that I didnt like them, and that they were in the fridge if she wanted them. She seemed excited when I told her, but several days later the large pan was still pretty much full. Pehaps she didnt want to hurt my feelings, but oh I wish she would've told me what I had done wrong!
I did try tofu again a few months after that, in a restaurant, and I really liked it. I am now well versesd in the different varieties of tofu and their appropriate uses. And according to Bill, I make a mean tofu scramble. Tofu has definitley been the most challenging ingredient in my kitchen, but I am definitely comfortable with it now, and am able to enjoy it in many different ways.
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