Tofu-ckin' Fabulous Meal for Three (Four)

I'd heard rumors that tofu was an actual edible thing, but I hadn't entirely believed them because, holy shit, it's apparently really easy to cook bad tofu. I say this because I've eaten really bad tofu. Many times.

Tonight was not one of those times.

This meal takes some forethought and prep-work to make, but I 100% swear it is 105% worth it. That's +5% value, son.

EDIT: Three meals is dumb. I've changed some things to make this recipe stretch to four meals. Will update if leftovers are disastrous, 'cause around my henhouse, four meals means two servings for dinner, two servings for the sequel.

Tofu-ckin' Fabulous Meal for Three Four

Ingredients

1 lb (16 oz) extra firm tofu, which you are going to press like it's a heretic

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp chili/garlic sauce (I used Sriracha/Rooster Sauce)

2 3/4 cups water, boiling

1 1/4 cup quinoa, rinsed

1 small sweet potato, cut into 1/8th x 1/2 x 1" pieces

1 lb asparagus, rinsed and cut into 1/2" pieces

4 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

Press the Tofu

- At least 4 hours before you intend to eat this nonsense, press your tofu.

--- To do this, you'll open the package and pat the tofu dry with a paper towel or clean cloth.

--- Set a paper towel/clean cloth on a flatish, slightly bowled surface (we used two dinner plates)

--- Put a paper towel/clean cloth on top, then a flat thing on top of that (we used plastic take-out lids)

--- Press with 8-15 lbs weight (we used our cast iron skillets, the big  one and the little one, plus 2 28-oz cans of tomatoes; we ain't playin' no games)

--- Leave like that for 15-25 minutes. You'll press a ton of water out of the tofu, so do this where spillage won't be the end of the world.

--- Pat the tofu dry and tell it that it did a good job.

Marinate the Tofu

- Cut the now-pressed tofu into 1" cubes. Set them in a 9" square pan.

- In a cereal bowl, combine the sugar, rice vinegar, ginger, and chili sauce. Dump that over the tofu and jiggle the pan 'til it's all even and playing nice.

- Place that in the fridge and allow to marinate at least three and a half hours (we let ours sit for 8 hours and it turned out flippin' SWANK)

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~When you're ready to actually eat~

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Cook the Quinoa

- In a small saucepan, bring 2 3/4 cups of water to a boil.

- Rinse. Your. Quinoa. Do it. Don't make me come over there.

- Dump the quinoa into the boiling water. Stir every so often. Quinoa's pretty chill and shouldn't burn to the bottom.

- When the water's pretty much no longer around (about 15-20 minutes in), shut off the heat and lid the quinoa. It'll sit there and think pretty thoughts while you get the rest of the meal going.

Finish It (Flawless Victory)

- Rinse and chop up your asparagus, then dump it into a steamer. They need about 5ish minutes to steam.

- While that's merrily steaming, peel and chop up your sweet potatoes.

- Heat ~4 tbsp olive oil in a big frypan over medium-high heat.

- Put the sweet potatoes into the  steamer. They need about 3ish-4ish minutes to steam.

- Dump the tofu and marinade into the frypan. This WILL get you splattered, and it will hurt. I'll be back later to change these instructions to be "how to bake your !@#$ing tofu," because OUCH.

- Let the tofu fry for about 3-4 minutes covered (because if you don't cover it, you'll lose parts of your face/arm/hand to boiling oil). If you hate yourself, you can get in there and try to turn it so it cooks on both sides, but man, I do NOT recommend it.

- Turn the heat off under the frypan and let the tofu sit there hissing at you like demonic hellspawn.

- Serve the quinoa into three four bowls.

- Serve the sweet potatoes and asparagus equally into those three four bowls; mix gently to combine.

- Top with the tofu. You'll want to mix it in when you eat it, but it's prettier served with the tofu on top.

If you make this and don't think it's just the tightest shit then I'mma need you to bippity boppity back the fuck right on out of my life.

~yes