Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Tofurky!

I made a Tofurky Roast (mine came stuffed but gravyless and was meant to serve four) on Sunday. I also made a bunch of other things, but this post is dedicated to the Tofurky.



That there is really what you see when you take it out of the box. Looks kind of like a football, kind of like a ham, and just kind of funny, doesn't it?

It doesn't look much more appetizing unwrapped, though:



The box tells you to surround the roast with one quartered onion, two quartered potatoes and two carrots. That leaves you with really enormous potato pieces, so I halved some of mine again.



Then comes the "baste": one tablespoon olive oil, three tablespoons soy sauce (I use nama shoyu, even on this) and some dried sage. Mmmm.



Then you cover it up and throw it in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. When it comes out, it looks something like this:



Add more baste, put it back in the oven for ten minutes, uncovered, and (if one is to believe the packaging) it's done:



It kinda looked done and felt done when I stuck a fork in it (not that I really knew what "done" would look and feel like), but the vegetables were nowhere near cooked, so I wrapped the Tofurky in foil and left it on the stove top to be warmed by the heat of the oven and the pots on it while the vegetables cooked.

I make fun of Tofurky and similar mass-produced synthetic meats a lot. I call them science experiments, Igor food and other insulting things. But look at the Tofurky's ingredients. I can pronounce everything on that list. They even go the extra mile to let you know their stuff isn't genetically engineered. Pretty responsible, I think.

I served the Roast as part of a family dinner of sorts on Sunday night (more on that later). My brother was first to try it and exclaimed "Wow! It's turkey!" I was shocked! "Really?!?" "No, but it still tastes good," he laughed, finished off his portion and asked for more. My mother actually liked the included stuffing better than what we had at Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it too. So much that I spent all of Monday looking forward to eating the leftovers when I got home from work (with a biscuit, not in a sandwich). It was still tasty after two minutes in the microwave. I don't think the texture changed much either.

Carving the Roast (which kept rolling away until my brother held on to it while I cut):



Sliced. Mmmm....stuffing.



Looks kind of like a hard-boiled egg, doesn't it?



Thus concludes our photo essay on the Tofurky Roast. Have a good night, get home safe and don't forget to tip your bartender.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Mmm, I love Tofurky!! My boyfriend makes me one every year =)

Veggie said...

"Carving the Roast (which kept rolling away until my brother held on to it while I cut):"

If you make this again I have a suggestion for you.

Cut the Tofurky on a cutting board and if you have an electric knife use it. (It's the only time I bother taking out my electric knife.)