Weeknight Stir-Fry and Sheet Pan Tofu

I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like stir fry. It’s quick, easy and flavorful — not to mention all of the good veggies that it packs. Now that I’m in college, I find myself even more drawn to recipes that don’t require hours of cooking and hard-to-source ingredients. I want something on a weeknight that will revive me quickly, so that it doesn’t take me over half an hour to feel like a human again after a long day. That’s what I’ve learned about adulthood so far, everyone is exhausted and everyone is hungry. Well, maybe we can help you with that.

Mom developed this recipe throughout her times cooking on Monday nights. She was always so clean as she cooked. Whenever I made my way down into the kitchen for dinner, I was always impressed by (and a little afraid of) how the counters sparkled, a pan piled high with golden tofu and the greens and reds of bell peppers. Even the stove was clean. When I start to cook, on the other hand, I can see the stove begin to tremble, knowing full well what I’m capable of doing to it. We all have our styles, I guess, but either way, no matter who makes it, we love this dish.

Note: You can add the tofu in as is, as I would at my apartment, or, if you’d like better texture and more flavor, you can follow instructions below the recipe for mom’s baked tofu.

WEEKNIGHT STIR-FRY

Ingredients

• 1 block extra firm tofu (prepare ahead if you would like the chewy version, or just cut into half inch squares to add at the end)

• 1 tablespoon peanut, canola, vegetable, or grapeseed oil

• One large onion, cut in half and sliced

• One red pepper, sliced

• Two cloves garlic, sliced thin

• 1/2 inch fresh ginger, peeled and diced (or more, according to taste)

• Mushrooms, any type you prefer, cleaned and sliced (mom used 2/3 of a package of whole mushrooms)

• 1 cup snap peas make a great addition if they’re in season!

For the sauce:

• 3 tablespoons oyster sauce

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar

• 1 teaspoon fish sauce

Instructions

Stir all sauce ingredients in liquid measuring cup and set aside.

Prepare all ingredients according to the notes above ahead of time – cooking goes fast.

Prepare brown rice or have rice noodles ready to prepare.

Heat oil in a large nonstick sauté pan or wok.

Sauté onion in oil over medium high heat for three minutes. Add the red pepper and sauté two minutes more.

Add garlic and ginger and sauté for 30 seconds. Then add mushrooms (and snap peas, if using) and sauté one or two minutes more. Add sauce and cook for one or two minutes. Put in cubed tofu to warm and then serve over rice noodles or cooked rice.

the wrong way to press tofu

TOFU

Ingredients

• 1 block tofu

• Olive oil

• Soy sauce (optional)

• Chili garlic sauce (optional)

• Salt & pepper

• Garlic pepper (optional)

1. Drain the tofu. First things first — even the most firm varieties of tofu contain lots of extra water. In order to get our tofu nice and crispy, we need to drain some of that water out. To do so, put your tofu on a paper towel and lay another paper towel on top. Then, place a cutting board on top and stack a bunch of heavy cans or pots or whatever else you can safely balance on the board. The idea is to put a lot of pressure/weight on the tofu, which will help the excess water to press out into the paper towels. Let it drain for 15-30 minutes.

2. Cut the tofu. Once the tofu has drained, remove the weights and paper towels. Cut the tofu into desired shape, mom usually made little cubes (roughly 3/4 inch each), but you can cut triangles, rectangles, or anything else that tickles your fancy. Just note that the thickness of your shapes will determine your crispy-outside to soft-inside ration, so if you want even cripier bites of tofu, make your shapes a bit thinner.

3. Coat the tofu. Add the tofu to a large mixing bowl and drizzle it with roughly 2 Tbs olive oil, tossing gently to coat. Then add liquid seasonings: Mom used 1 tsp soy sauce and 2 tsp chili garlic sauce, I like more (2 Tbs soy sauce, 1 Tb chili garlic sauce), and some people like it plain! Sprinkle evenly with about 1 Tb of cornstarch and remaining seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder). I don’t measure these, but a good rule of thumb is to not be afraid of salt and pepper and to be just a little afraid of garlic powder.

4. Arrange on a baking sheet. Turn the tofu out onto a parchment-covered baking sheet and arrange so that the tofu is in an even layer (not overlapping). It is okay if some of the pieces break up a little, with tofu that is, I’m afraid, inevitable.

5. Bake until crispy. Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes. Then remove the baking sheet from the oven and flip each of the tofu bites so that they can cook evenly on the other side for 15 minutes more (or until they reach your desired level of crisipiness). Depending on how much soy sauce you use, they may look quite toasted after the first 15 minutes, but will likely still be soft, so check with a careful finger! Remove from oven and add to recipe!

20-Minute Roasted Potatoes

Here at the Away Cafe, everybody loves roasted potatoes. Mom, dad, Sephe, Lucia, me (Amelia), everybody. Yet, up until recently, we hardly made them. I have memories of potatoes roasting slowly in the oven, the cook anxiously resetting the timer over and over as the potatoes continued to take more time to fully cook through. They usually required a minimum of 45 minutes and often took an hour or more to roast. It was hard to get the timing right, and too much effort for one side dish.

Enter, my solution: cut them super thin! These are like a cross between a potato chip and roasted potatoes, and man, are they delicious. They roast for only 10 minutes and broil for about 2, making them the perfect side dish: quick, easy, and appealing to all kinds of eaters. Next time you’re craving some fast food fries from the pre-pandemic ages, give these a shot.

Quick Roasted Potatoes

Fills one sheet pan with potatoes slices; doesn’t make very much and could easily be doubled

• 2 medium/large potatoes, any variety (I usually use russet)

• Olive oil

• Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash and slice the potatoes thinly and dump them onto a large sheet pan. Drizzle about one tablespoon olive oil and and 1/2 teaspoon or two huge pinches salt (don’t be shy with the salt here) on top, along with plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Mix it all together with your hands and spread the potatoes in an even layer over the sheet pan. Wash your hands and put the sheet pan in the oven. Roast for five minutes, flip the potatoes, and then roast for another five. Preheat your broiler while they are finishing roasting. When the five minutes is up, flip them again and broil for 1-3 minutes. The time this takes will vary wildly depending on the strength of your broiler and your desired level of crisp, so watch closely.

Once they look toasty and brown, take them out and serve with ketchup, if desired.

You could definitely go crispier if you wanted to; just watch closely!