Ponzu-Sesame Tofu & Vegetables

Food Prep and Cooking

Nick:

This took almost an hour to cook, and there was a lot to do; the last time we had tofu we just drained it and cut it, but this time it had to be pressed under a heavy pot between two layers of paper towels for ten minutes. While that we as going on we had to cook the rice, prep the veggies, make the sauce, cook the tofu, put it in a bowl, cook the veggies, add the sauce, mix with the tofu in the bowl, plate the rice, plate the tofu and veggies, and add the garnish. Whew!! We skipped the peas, because they're nasty, and most of the hot sauce, because it was REAL hot and we're little babies. 

Katie:

I was very proud of my skills in chopping the tofu into bite-sized cubes. I'm not sure why this took so long to cook, to be honest. It didn't feel like there were necessarily more steps than other dishes at all. We did take a break while we were pressing the tofu to play Pokémon Snap though. I got a great picture of Pichu!

Post-meal thoughts

Nick:

The sauce we made for this was absolutely delicious; as my dad would say, you could eat an old boot with enough of that sauce on it. The rice, carrots and stallions were delicious. The tofu was also there. Okay, I'm kidding; I'm not really a tofu fan, and the sauce made the tofu taste great, but I still wasn't in love with the texture. I think I would have liked this more if it was tofu-less; the sauce is the real star of the dish, and the sauce on, let's say, rice, carrots, scallions, water chestnuts and some red bell peppers would be delicious. The sauce saved it, but tolerating tofu is about as much as I can claim to like the stuff, and I don't know that I want any more dishes with it in there; unless the sauce is this good, and I would be shocked if that is possible, I just don't like it very much. 

Katie:

I think this is one of the top 3 things we've gotten from the meal box delivery places so far! My only critique is that I would have liked more sauce. We cooked the tofu well enough so it was good and done, not squishy at all. Some of the carrots were that kind of blackened where it just makes it more sweet. Combine that with the sauce and it was perfection! I would absolutely get this again!