Veggie Cobb Salad, and My Favorite Way to Cook Tofu

I made veggie cobb salad for dinner last night.  This was monumental because it marks the first time in my LIFE I have ever hard-boiled an egg.  Remember when I told you I couldn’t really cook an egg?  That didn’t only apply to fried eggs…it applies to every kind of egg a person might want to eat.  But I did it.  And it turned out magnificently, or so I’m told.  I didn’t eat it.  But Ryan did, and I saw it, and it looked like a hard-boiled egg should look.   My salad is the one pictured below, sans egg.  This post isn’t really about boiling an egg, though.  It’s about my hands-down favorite way to cook tofu, and a salad you can make using the tofu.

The Best Way to Cook Tofu. (modified from the Grit Cookbook)

Ingredients:

15 oz block of water-packed extra firm tofu
1 tbl olive oil
Soy sauce (a few shakes of the bottle)
Nutritional yeast (about 1-2 tbl)

Method:

Drain the tofu and press excess water out using a tea towel or paper towels.  Cut tofu into a small dice.  Heat olive oil in a non-stick skillet, and add tofu.  Cook it, flipping pieces infrequently so the tofu gets nice and brown and crispy on the outside.  When tofu has browned (it takes me about 20 minutes to get it how I like it), turn the heat down to about medium-low and add a few shakes of soy sauce to the pan.  Stir the tofu around, making sure it all gets evenly seasoned.  Add one to two tablespoons of nutritional yeast to the tofu, again stirring it around so it is evenly coated.  It should look like the tofu above when you are done!

Veggie Cobb Salad

Ingredients:

1 block’s worth of grit-style crispy tofu
4-6 veggie bacon strips (I buy Morningstar brand)
2 chopped tomatoes
1 diced avocado
A few cups of chopped romaine, leaf lettuce, or other greens
Cheese—blue cheese is good, or shredded cheddar
A hard-boiled egg, if you wish!

Method:

Once your tofu is prepared as described above and your veggie bacon has crisped up in the skillet, all you really need to do is chop the veggies up & arrange in a cobb-esque fashion.  🙂