When I first put this meal on the weekly menu, I had grand visions of tonight being the first cookout of the season, just a hair before spring’s official arrival this Thursday. The weather has been so mild, so sunny and lovely these last few days, that a barbecue seemed a reasonable assumption to me.
Now, it is snowing. So much for reasonable!
And so our cookout became a cook-IN, with the buffalo tofu baking for a solid hour in the oven instead of for 25 minutes on the grill. I can think of worse dinners! :)
I began marinating the tofu right after I woke up this morning, slicing the block up into eight strips and pouring almost a full bottle of buffalo sauce into a zip-top bag atop said tofu strips. Every few hours I reached into the refrigerator and turned the bag to allow the tofu to marinate evenly, and there it sat, chilling, until I needed it tonight for dinner!
When it came time to bake, I laid each strip out on a baking sheet and turned the oven to 350. I cooked the tofu on one side for 20 minutes, then flipped each strip and cooked it all for another 20. A sheet of tater tots joined the tofu for the final 20 minutes, at which time I cranked the oven temperature up to 425 (and added a can of peas to a saucepan on the stove). By the time the buffalo strips had been in the oven for an hour, everything else was ready!
We served the tofu on steak rolls with all the sandwich fixins – lettuce, tomato, onion, nutritional yeast (for me – LeeLee doesn’t care for it as much as I do), and the like. And cookout or no, it made for a perfect Sunday night meal! We’ve even got enough tofu left to make a hearty lunch for tomorrow – huzzah!
:)