tofu scramble

This morning, I woke up with a mission. Soft morning light crept in from above the bedsheets stapled to my window frames. As I stared at the ceiling, contemplating the void, a ravenous desire took ahold of me and caught fire. A divine wave of inspiration resonated through my body. I really, really needed to make a tofu scramble.

To be fair, I was quite hungover. It took me a while to finally work up the gall to actually make my way out of bed toward the kitchen. But when I got there, it only became more and more obvious what needed to be done.

Side note: welcome to my new food blog. This is the first time I've ever tried anything like this. Originally, I was going to make an attempt at an online cooking show, but then I realized that I'm boring as hell and ugly as sin, so I figured it would be better to do it this way where nobody will be subjected to my horrible personality. I'm also pretty new to veganism in general, so try to stick with me while I figure it all out. We're gonna have a good time.

Just for the official record, this recipe is a direct rip-off of hot for food's perfect tofu scramble, with a few slight modifications on my part. Her blog rocks, but that's not what we're here for today. This post is about self-indulgence.

Let's talk ingredients. Here's what I used in this bad boy:

1/5th of a delicious red bell pepper

a healthy slice of red onion

about four tablespoons of cashew milk

a good squirt of olive oil

two tablespoons of nutritional yeast

half a teaspoon of salt

half a teaspoon of pepper

half a teaspoon of turmeric

half a teaspoon of paprika

about a quarter of a clove of garlic

some salsa

a corn tortilla

1/3 of a block of extra-firm tofu

(the only kind that counts, if you ask me [you didn't])

Now, to start off, you want to chop up your veggies real nice. I believe the term is "dicing." You want to dice the onion and pepper and give that garlic a good mincin'. You don't need a ton, just enough to flavor the oil.

Next, you want to get that oil hot in a small, non-stick pan. Set it over medium heat. Once it gets all ripply, toss the garlic in and push it around for a minute or so. Once you can smell it, you're ready to sweat the veggies. I like mine a bit on the softer side, but use your own judgement here. I'm not your fucking mom.

Once the vegetables have been cooked to your liking, you're gonna want to add that tofu. This dish is supposed to resemble scrambled eggs, so no need to be cute here. Just kind of squish it apart with your fingers right over the pan. You'll notice that the tofu IS a bit on the pale side. That's where our spices come into play. Stir everything around until the tofu is a little warm and a little brown. Once that happens, throw in the turmeric, paprika, salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast and continue frying. It should look something like this:

Alright, that already looks great. We're on our way. The turmeric will give it that lovely golden hue and the nutritional yeast will make everything taste a bit less...vegan. Give it a minute and you'll see what I mean.

Once you can really smell everything mingling, add in your cashew milk and let that reduce; it's going to make the tofu a bit less dry and weird-looking. I can't recommend skipping this part; any type of unsweetened non-dairy milk will do.

When all is said and done, it should look a bit like this. Let the scramble cool slightly and get your tortilla on a plate. Now is when the real magic happens.

It's supposed to be a play on the classic breakfast taco. Admittedly, including some greens like kale or spinach would have really made this dish shine, but I didn't have any, so I added some salsa from Trader Joe's to liven things up a bit. It really brought a lot to the party. Sriracha would also probably be great.

This meal changed my fucking life. It made me see god. I've been on kind of a health kick lately, and this is the first time in about five months I've had something other than a green smoothie for breakfast. So my love of this scramble may be a bit biased in that regard. But I still definitely recommend whipping this up next time you need something tasty in your belly.

Give it a try. Let me know how it goes.