The last few weeks have been a source of frustration, to say the least. My host, whose name I won't mention (hint: it begins with a "Dream" and ends with a "host"), decided to add a disallow all to my robots.txt file on one of my biggest sites (not this one, thankfully). In non-geek speak, that means they changed settings on my files (without permission) to tell Google to de-index every page on my site. Needless to say, it's distracted me from the relaxing things I love, like trying out and making new recipes for this blog.
However...
A foolproof way to remedy a creative block in the kitchen
Oh, that's easy. Just have a clever dad. Go on.
I have a plastic tofu press which yields a block of tofu just about large enough for one. It was great when I first bought it because I'd never made tofu prior to that point and it was a novelty. But time went on and I realised it wasn't a very good product for a serious tofu lover. You just can't make enough with it, for one, and it just isn't that high of quality. It works but it's the most bottom line press you can get, in my opinion.
I looked and looked for something wooden, something bigger, something that represented my mind's image of the ideal tofu press. I couldn't find it.
So I rang my father (who's all clever and stuff with making things). I then e-mailed him some images and measurements and he knocked this up, adding a few ideas of his own. A couple of weeks later a gigantic box arrived on my doorstep and I became the proud owner of a certifiably awesome tofu press. How cool is that?
Design requests
My biggest request was a lid with a good sized handle that would sit outside of the box when pressing thin blocks of curd. This is not a traditional design, but I wanted it because the aforementioned plastic kit contained a lid which was just crap. It was light and sat improperly on the block, with very little accessible surface area on which to place an object to aid in pressing. This meant tofu pressed with an inconsistent texture (like pockets where the liquid was not evenly pressed out).
I wanted ultimate control. The new box allows me to press the tofu to the point I determine is right for what I want as an end product. I can easily stack books or a cutting board with a bowl of liquid on top of the handle to press more (for super firmness).
Second, it's bigger. Much, much bigger, and with a whole lot of holes for the whey to drain away (awhey? Har har. Sorry). I can press ten times the amount of bean curd as before. That's a lot.
Yum. Can't get enough of it. If you hate tofu, you haven't had it fresh.
And you know how chocolate milk always tastes better from a cardboard carton than from plastic? The same applies for tofu made in a wood press versus plastic (try the chocolate milk thing though, I'm serious).