Learning Spirit

I absolutely love Cauldron and Provamel marinated tofu pieces but since they are a bit pricey, I thought I’d try and make my own. it was a bit of a disaster!

First, I drained a block of firm tofu and cut it up into half inch cubes and seperated the cubes between two bowls. I tried two different marinades that I found online. (lemon tahini and szechuan). I them covered the bowls and left them overnight in the fridge.

The next day I was really looking forward to some tofu pieces! Firstly, I deep fried half of one of the bowls. This didn’t work out because they went a little crisp on the outside but them they were very squidgy and soft in the middle. And sadly the tofu pieces hadn’t soaked up the marinade properly and only the outside had a little flavour.

Them I thought, I’d pan fry the other bowl. This was a nightmare too. I put the pieces in the frying pan with the marinade and fried until the juice disappeared. But the pices didn’t go crisp or anything. They were a bit rubbery and again, the marinade hadn’t been absorbed properly.

I now have half of one the bowls left and have no idea what to do with it. I have a feeling it hasn’t absorbed much of the flavour again though.

I read somewhere that it is a good idea to freeze the tofu after draining to give it that spongy texture. And I read it’s also meant to help soak up the marinade too. Next time I will try this method. Anyone tried this? Was it successful?

The main reason for this blog is that I would like to help and be helped. I love arts and crafts (and vegan cooking) but I can’t afford lessons in any of them, so everything is try to do is trial and error.

That’s where the blog comes in. I hope to post details of the different projects (and recipes) that I try and give a brief review for each one. It might be a matter of saying what went wrong and how I tried to fix it or asking for help on how I could fix it. I am in no way a good artist (or cook) so I guess to start with, I’ll be needing more help but bare with me, as I hope to be able to help others soon..

A bit about me. I’m a final year computer science PhD student. I love all things arty and crafty (drawing, watercolours, dolls houses, minitures, clay, origami, knitting, etc..). I’m huge fan of stand up comedy and try to go see live shows as much as I can. I’ve been vegetarian for 10 years and made the switch to vegan only 6 weeks ago. So far I love the concept and I enjoy looking for obscure ingredients in the health food shops and I even enjoy scanning ingredients labels!

Enjoy!!