My Kids Ate Tofu and Lived to Tell About It

Last weekend we had a "first" at our household: our first tofu. And we all survived! Even the kids -- or maybe I should say "kid," because Drew eats nearly everything I put on his plate and Kate eats nearly nothing.

Zach was conveniently absent on a hunting trip for this "first." I told him awhile back I was thinking of trying it, and he said that (although he's been a real champion of healthy eating around here), he didn't know if he could "go that far." I guess everyone has their limits. But my poor, innocent children have no idea what tofu is, so they were fair game for my experimentation.

My first order of the day was to find out where in the heck you even locate tofu at the store. After consulting with my grandmother-in-law's new husband, I found out that it is in the refrigerated part of the produce section.

For the uninitiated (like myself), tofu is also known as soybean curd (gross! no wonder it's under an assumed name), and is made by curdling fresh, hot soymilk with a coagulant. It's high in protein and is a good source of vitamin B and iron. It looks like a giant block of greasy white cheese.

For my first tofu experience, I was cooking Deceptively Delicious Tofu Nuggets. It called for the nuggets to be rolled in a broccoli or spinach puree before rolling them in bread crumbs, but that green stuff would be a dead giveaway that these were no ordinary nuggets, so I used butternut squash puree.

Breading these suckers was an annoying chore. I ended up just dumping the puree and the bread crumbs on top of it.

Then I fried them in olive oil.

It kinda looks like nuggets! C'mon, it looks like nuggets, right?

Frying them went O.K., but a lot of the breading fell off. When I made the kids' plates, I made sure to give them the most evenly breaded nuggets.

Here's a trick question: how many vegetables are represented on this plate?

Looks like just one, right? Peas. But there are actually three here: peas, butternut squash (in the batter of the tofu nuggets), and cauliflower (in the "butter/cheese" sauce of the whole wheat penne pasta. There's also a little homemade pesto from my basil plant, but I didn't count that).

Drew was skeptical at first, but he ate them! And I ate mine, too. It was very cheesy in texture, and tasted just like crunchy butternut squash. That's what I keep hearing about tofu, that it takes on the flavor of whatever it's cooked with. I wasn't crazy about it, but I wasn't repulsed. I'm not averse to trying a few more recipes out. Maybe I can even sneak some onto Zach's plate.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!