My Big Easter Tofu Extravaganza

Easter dinners are always special and a challenge when you have vegetarians in the house.What happens to that heavenly baked ham? It becomes tofu - namely tofu baked in the style of ham.

I found this recipe during a search. I had scoured my local Stop & Shop for the Gardein Holiday Ham loaf. Nothing. Not even the turkey one. I guess those are made ar only Thanksgiving and Christmas. I bought a block of Nasoya Hard Tofu, hoping to find a recipe. Bingo! It was a Washington Post entry by Joe Yolan about a spin on a  recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowicz. It's part of The Superfun Times vegan Holiday Cookbook. I added some of my own spin on it.

First here is the tofu,

This is what you should have,  Then it's wrapping the tofu brick in paper towels 

Doing this soaks up the water (because tofu is basically a sponge).I double wrapped it in two paper towels. Then to squeeze more water out of it, I put a can of soup on a plate over it.

In the meantime, I made the marinade. It takes three tablespoons of grated ginger

You need a ginger grater for this, A hasp or a micrograter can work too.

This was probably the hardest part of it. Four cloves of finely chopped garlic are also added.

Now for the orange. Ms. Moskowicz recommends blood oranges which I could not find. I subbed in D'Angelo which have more or less the same tangy sweetness as the blood oranges. Both the juice and the zest had to be used. I started with a micro grater or hasp, Bad idea I used a regular grater. The orange looks like a shaved peach,

Use a heaping tablespoon of zest and  1/2 cup of juice. This is mixed with two tablespoons of maple syrup and four teaspoons of low sodium soy sauce. Also add two tablespoons of olive oil. Whisk everything together

The tofu was then cut into blocks. I was able to get five

Then covered in plastic and marinaded in the fridge for two hours.

 Cover with foil. Bake in a 375 degree Farenheit oven  for twenty minutes.

Take the foul off. Flip the bricks and bake for another fifteen minutes.

And this is the finished product served with mashed , soy buttered cauliflower.

It was very good but very labor intensive. Next time. I'll just use orange juice and marmalade along with ginger paste. Still it was pretty tasty - the perfect Easter meal for ham starved vegans.