Vegetable Tofu Spread

See the original recipe here: http://homemadehearts.ca/2014/04/23/vegetable-tofu-spread/

I love tofu even though I am not a vegetarian. It is cheap and you can do so much with it. If you don't like tofu, I would still recommend this recipe. I let two of my coworkers who either didn't like tofu or hadn't had much experience with it try it and they loved it. Though the recipe calls itself a spread, I would say it is a tofu take on a chicken/tuna salad. This recipe make a great lunch. Please note that I doubled the recipe in the pictures, but will write it out with the original proportions.

1. First you have to prepare the tofu. The recipe calls for 8 ounces extra firm tofu, but I used firm tofu and it worked just fine. Drain and press out the excess liquid from the tofu. To press out the excess liquid. Place the tofu on top of a  paper towel on top of a cutting board. Place a heavy object (in my case two Pyrex baking pans) on top of the tofu and leave the tofu out for about half an hour.

 

You might want to place more paper towels under the tofu because there is a lot of liquid hidden away in the soy piece of future delicousness.

2. Something I didn't do, but I would do next time is process the carrots first. With all the other ingredients in the food processor, some of the carrot chunks didn't get ground down when I processed the carrots with the rest of the ingredients. I would first process the 1 carrot until the chucks are a little larger than grated cheese. You don't want to process the carrots until it turns into carrot juice. I used baby carrots instead of regular carrots because you don't have to peel them. 

2. Place the tofu into the food processor. I tore the tofu into pieces with my hands to get it all in there.  

3. Place the rest of the ingredients in the food processor. This includes:

• 1/2 cup of mayonnaise (I used reduced fat olive oil  mayonnaise, but if you wanted to make this recipe vegan, you can use vegannaise) 

• 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard (I've made the recipe with both smooth and course style dijon mustard. I would recommend using the smooth. Do not use any other type of mustard {yellow, honey, etc}., it doesn't have the seasoning of dijon mustard.)

• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce (Most people don't have Braggs liquid aminos on hand. Soy sauce or or tamari sauce works just fine.)

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 a teaspoon of celery seeds, 1 teaspoon of dried oregano, 1/2 a teaspoon of black pepper, and 1/4 of a teaspoon of sea salt (or regular salt) 

4. Process all the ingredients until you get the consistency you want. You are not going to get a completely smooth spread, but you can get a spreadable consistency.

 Now wasn't that easy? I put the tofu spread in a wrap with cucumbers. Let me know what you did.