Munchie Monday: Whole Foods Market Sesame Tofu

The day before the falling episode I had stopped in at the Whole Foods Market near our apartment and had purchased another box of their Sesame Tofu Sticks/Logs...actually, I don't know that they are called.  They just called out to me and since I had spoken with a nice boy in their prepared foods section a few weeks before, I stopped at that display again.  A nice girl asked if she could help so I asked if they made their own sesame sauce to marinate their tofu sticks in or if they used some in the store.  They make their own.  Whereupon I asked if I could buy some.  She told me yes but that they made it up fresh and did not have any.  There was nothing for it but to order some!  So I did.  I asked for a pint which they would charge me the same price as a pound of food from the salad bar.  No problem.

On Thursday I walked home from the office again, this time ON THE SIDEWALK ALL THE WAY!!  I stopped at Whole Foods, picked up the sesame sauce and two blocks of extra firm tofu.  (I also picked up a small amount of their roasted pork which I promptly ate after paying for it.  It gave me the energy to finish my road trip...!)

When I got home I put the tofu pressing.   The next morning I put part of the sesame sauce into a glass baking dish, sliced the tofu, put it on top of the sauce then poured the rest of the sauce over the tofu, covered it with a ziplock bag and put it in the refrigerator to marinate.  Well, I also ate two, maybe three, spoonfuls of that nectar of the gods!

Tofu ready to bake

Because I was not together that night to bake the tofu, I left it to marinate until the following day which was Saturday.  I baked it for 60 minutes at 350 degrees F, checking it halfway through.  It did not look cooked enough so I left it to cook the remaining 30 minutes then shut off the oven.  I still didn't think it was ready but did not want it to burn if I got too involved in something else (a real problem for me...Dear One does NOT like to hear the smoke alarm.  It makes him lack confidence in the next meal...) so I just left it in the oven with the heat off.

Tofu out of the oven--notice the separated oil in the lower right of the picture

Eventually I pulled it out of the oven and ate a bite.  Delicious!  Since it was warm it did not have the same texture as the Whole Foods tofu, but it sure did taste good.  Into the refrigerator it went after I took one slice for making a sandwich.  I had that sandwich around 2 PM and didn't need another thing to eat the rest of the day! Seriously.  I just was not hungry.  I wonder if tofu is magic food...

Tofu after refrigeration and ready to eat cold.  Makes a great sandwich though I might slice it thinner the next time.

If I had thought that I could ascertain the ingredients in the Whole Foods Market sesame sauce, I was mistaken.  All I could tell for sure was that there was a lot of sesame oil, some ground roasted sesame seeds, and some red pepper flakes.  When the baking was done, the oil had separated from the brown sludge-like material.  It still tasted good but I cannot for the life of me decide what it is.  I probably won't buy it again because it was so expensive and I am the only one eating it but it was a good experiment.

Tofu Sticks

Whole Foods Markets sells some wonderful tofu sticks/logs in their salad bar.  They are so delicious.  They are great cold from the salad bar, heated up with vegetables and grains, and warmed and put into a sandwich just by themselves.

These tofu sticks have been baked in some way so they are more chewy than mushy.  I cannot stand soft tofu, unless it is in miso soup, and then I really just prefer the miso broth and not the other stuff in the soup, except for the scallions.  The scallions really make the miso soup, in my opinion!

Anyway, the last time I was at Whole Foods I asked the nice boy how they made them.  He said he was not sure they gave out that recipe BUT the process was that they marinated the tofu sticks in sesame/ginger/garlic sauce.  After marinating, they pour some more of the sauce on top then bake for a while.  Once baked they pour more sauce over the tofu sticks and serve them in the salad bar.

This stuff tastes so good to me that one day when I was there I filled one of their small boxes full to the gunwales.  There were only two more pieces left in the salad bar pan. I could not in good conscience take them all...

This was what my effort looked like:

They do look icky but they tasted great!  Since I did not have any of the Whole Foods sauce, I made up my own with rice vinegar, sugar (about equal amounts of those two), soy sauce, ground ginger, ground garlic, Sambal Oeleck, some vegetable broth.  Since there was not enough sauce after marinating overnight, which does tend to produce a salty taste, I added more soy sauce and poured over the top on the pan which is why you see the black residue.

One thing Whole Foods Boy did not tell me was whether or not WF presses the tofu first. I did. I sliced it in half horizontally then set it on a kitchen towel that was covered with three layers of paper towels on a quarter sheet pan, put on three more layers of paper towels and a second quarter sheet pan  (which I bought for this specific purpose to Dear One's disgust) then put a few containers of food that were already in the refrigerator on top to press.  I did this in the morning then at night I pulled the whole works out (without dumping all the food containers, which was a big plus!) and removed the tofu slabs from the pans.  They were now ready to soak up the good sauce.  I cut them into sticks and started the above marinade.

When marinated well, I baked at 350 degrees F. for about an hour, turning over after 30 minutes.  The tofu sticks that were smaller were a little crispy, which was great.  The rest were nice and flavorful and chewy.  I am going to get more tofu (once the refrigerator is empty of leftovers...) and see if I can find that sauce Whole Foods uses.

More Mission Knitting

 In an effort get further on the hat project,  I decided I would try to knit two hats at once on two circular needles.

The hat I am making is a K2, P2 ribbing for about 8 1/2-9 inches from cast on edge (112 stitches)  then work the crown decreases.  This is a very stretchy pattern, yet it is snug on a smaller head.

Since I had size 7 circular needles...both 16-inch and 24-inch, I decided to use them to work two hats at once.  It turned out that the 16-inch "circ" was a bit too tight to do the job easily.  It certainly can be done that way but not as comfortably as with two 24-inch needles...so off I went to Black Sheep at Orenco to their new location.  It was a challenge for me to get there but I love our Garmin.  (In our welcome letter to the Oregon Portland Mission it was strongly recommended that we bring a GPS with us.  I can see why!  Fortunately we were already comfortable with the basics of GPS.  I am sure there is more we could learn, but it gets us where we need to go.)

I have started getting Chia Goo needles.  The ones I get are lace needle which have a longer sharper point making it very easy to pick up the yarn.  Their cable DOES NOT TANGLE!!!  A very good thing.

112 stitches Patons Classic Wool cast onto two circular needles

On the way home I dropped off a book at the main library then saw a Papa John's pizza and cranked the car to a quick stop and ordered a pizza.  Dear One is always happy when I bring a pizza home to him.  This was a Philly Steak pizza which was on sale for a good prize.  Because he is a vegetarian I asked if they could make half of it a regular cheese pizza, which they could.

One more stop was at Whole Foods Market which I had discovered by chance about half a mile from home.  I was astonished at the prices of things...quite high, except for some canned garbanzo beans which were $.79, the cheapest I have seen them.

When I got home we had the pizza for supper.  The crust was great.  The regular cheese side of the pizza was cheese, but not regular:  no red sauce, just more of the cream cheese sauce that was under the Philly Cheese Steak side.  Not popular.  Having said that,  the cheese size went pretty fast, too.