ivy's favorite toad-fried-stir-fru

my housemate ivy knows how much i love tofu. all conscientious omnivore-ing aside, from elementary school through pretty much sophomore year of college, i was about as vegetarian as one can possibly be. my mum often cooked with tofu, sometimes as a main dish and sometimes as a dessert. anywho, while on kent island two summers ago, i realized how simple and wonderful toad fried stir fru can be! tonight (after a few hours of setting up a large white tent for pumpkin-selling) i decided to quickly make dinner before meetings, etc. the necessities:

1 package toad food (tofu), cut in half page-in-book style, and pressed for half an hour to get out excess water.
2 (or more) cloves of garlic, minced
red pepper flakes (oodles again, if you're gravling)
chopped scallion (around three-ish)
olive oil
a goodly amount (haha) of broccoli, steamed almost to done-ness. most important about broccoli, in my humble opinion... is NOT TO WASTE THE STEMS! i think this is the best part of broccoli. just take a nice sharp knife, and being careful so as not to chop your fingers off, cut off the hard outside layer. the inside is really light green. cut this into little circles like you are slicing a cucumber. aah so many people compost it, but it really is the best!!!
soy sauce
white rice
toasted sesame oil

hokay. so... you've pressed the toad food for at least half an hour. cut it into about 1/2 inch cubes. put z garlic and red pepper flakes in a bowl. add enough soy sauce to cover the bottom of the bowl and all the garlicky goodness. add the tofu and shake it to cover the tofu. let it marinate for a while. make enough white rice for who ever is eating. in a pan, heat olive oil. add the tofu/garlic mixture, but be careful that you don't pour any of the excess soy sauce in. if you do, your tofu will be uber soft, and crumble before you get to the broccoli. saute the tofu/garlic until it's done. by done, i mean cooked-ish (def. warm) but it doesn't take that long. like 5 minutes. add the scallion... then the broccoli... then the left over garlic soy sauce. in all it takes around 15 minutes. put rice in a bowl, and the toad food/broccoli on top, and add a tiny bit of toasted sesame oil. put your bright red chopsticks on the left side of the bowl (since EVERYONE is left handed!), and eat dinner with your housemate!(1 thing of tofu makes A LOT of stir fry. you can make extra rice and have it for lunch the next day. or just invite other housemates to eat with you!)

yay!

ps happy wednesday. :-)
pps mama brought me the braided garlic from the farmers market in seattle. isn't it beautiful!?