I wanted to share my first experience trying to make tofu (key word: trying) so you guys can see that even as someone who loves all sorts of food, I do not know everything but am willing to learn everyday! Here’s what I mean by ‘tried’ making a tofu recipe…
So I ran to Wal-Mart really quick to grab some stir fry essentials: broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, carrots, diced onions, rice, stir fry sauce (yes, they actually have a sauce called stir fry), and of course, tofu. When I got back home, I drained the tofu and chopped up all the ingredients that required chopping, then started on the rice- one thing I can’t mess up too easily are pastas and rice so that’s a blessing.
My first mistake was draining the tofu. Scratch that; my first mistake was not following a recipe from Pinterest as I should have when making a meal for the first time.
I threw all the ingredients into a wok with the stir fry sauce and turned up the heat. As I stirred the concoction, I noticed the tofu start to crumble. Uh-oh. It was not looking the way I had seen tofu look in pictures of stir-fry meals. Oh well, I kept stirring because I was excited and it still smelled delicious- plus, being hungry means I’ll eat anything. The veggies and tofu came to a point that I thought was done, or maybe I was just tired of waiting any longer, and the rice was done as well. I mixed up the rice and stir fry ingredients but was disappointed to find that my tofu wasn’t in the nice cubes; it had mostly all crumbled. Obviously I gorged it down anyways, and the tofu tasted great! But I realized when I took my first bite of zucchini that it wasn’t zucchini at all…it was cucumber.
After these slight fails, I searched why tofu crumbles when cooking and found that draining out the liquid dries it out and makes it crumble (mistake #1). I also found that extra firm tofu is the better kind to get when making stir-fry (mistake #2). The zucchini thing was just downright embarrassing but hey, I learned from it!
Here is some encouragement as you go about making your daily meals and honestly, the rest of life: mistakes are where we learn some of our best lessons. You have to try things and normally fail the first time around in order to learn from it. I mean come on, as passionate as I am about nutrition and health, I didn’t even know the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber. But I can’t let that stop me from trying new things, and you shouldn’t either!
You better bet your bottom dollar the next time I make stir fry, it will be fantastic (don’t worry, I’ll share pictures). Comment below silly mistakes you’ve made while cooking!
