Baked Maple-Mustard Tofu

I make this tofu all the time because it’s great to have around to toss with a salad, wrap in a sandwich, or just snack on hot or cold. It’s baked for a long while at a low temperature to get as much moisture out as possible, leaving you with satisfyingly chewy, meaty tofu.

How to Press Tofu

Looks pretty "blah" right out of the package

 Tofu is amazingly versatile. It starts as a slimy, colorless, nearly tasteless block of smushed-together bean curd (which is exactly what it sounds like—the curds you get when you cause soybean milk to coagulate, much like the curds you’d get from cow’s milk). Happily, the qualities that make it so unappealing in raw form are also what make it so much fun to cook with and so handy to have around. It is pretty tasteless on its own, but it soaks up just about any flavors you care to add to it very nicely. Same with color.

Admittedly, though, tofu needs a little extra help when it comes to texture.

Yakisoba

Columbus Day Weekend, 2008.  The place: Candlewood Lake, Connecticut.  The cast of characters: ten thesis-crazed Amherst students looking for a little R&R.  We spent four days at a friend's house on the lake, surrounded by sparkling water and fiery New England autumn hills, doing our best to forget about the work awaiting us back at school.  We slept until noon and spent the afternoons drinking beer and lounging on the dock.

And, taking advantage of the huge and elegantly equipped kitchen, we cooked.  We cooked like the hungry young fiends we were, overwhelmed with delight at our temporary freedom from dining-hall blandness.  We bought everything we could get our hands on at the local Costco, and put together elaborate communal dinners full of fresh vegetables and bright flavors.  And by far the most successful meal we had that weekend was our friend Shaylon's yakisoba.