Easy Cheap Home Made Tofu

I'm one of those guys who not only likes tofu I LOVE it, even chunks of it raw plain, or dipped into soy sauce with wasabi added, or with a bit of pickled ginger.....as long as it is the firm kind. But as a tightwad I flinch handing over $1.29 for less than a pound of tofu that I know is mostly water. So today I am making my first batch of home made tofu since my mushroom-inspired mid-20s.....back then I'd cook soyflour in water then added lemon juice as the coagulant. Here is what is working SO well today.

I recently bought on-line from Honeyville Food Products a 50 lb. bag of defatted, 55% protein soyflour for  $61.29 and $4.49 shipping to help me continue to achieve the muscle mass gains I've been enjoying since adding budget whey protein to my diet....a scoop in my dumpster dived (brand new!) Bullet blender with low fat soymilk, a shake of food grade diatomaceous earth and a few drops of iodine as soon as I come home from the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Even "cheap" whey protein is expensive, so my intent was and is to try scoops of this high protein soyflour in alternating Power Shakes. But with SO MUCH soy flour I can experiment in the kitchen....one of my favorite hobbies. So....I looked up home made tofu making and saw that while there are variations (nigari, gypsum, lemon juice, Epsom salts) the theme is the same....a natural coagulant in the manner of cheese making.

I brought two Brita pitchers' full of filtered water to a boil and added two cups of the soyflour, used a handcrank mixer to smooth out the lumps, and simmered it for about 15 minutes on Low. I put about a cup of filtered water in a steel sauce pan and added about 3 heaping tablespoons of Epsom Salts and a tablespoon of pickling lime (mainly as a calcium source) and brought it to a boil. Within SECONDS of my stirring the solution into the cooling soy milk, the curds began to form! They are now draining in a piece of clean pillowcase in a $1 stainless steel colander from Dollar Tree, then later I will put a few pounds of weight atop the saucer to press out more water. I will let it chill and firm up in the fridge to try out tomorrow.

Barely pennies' worth of Epsom Salts and 2 cups of that soyflour looks like it will yield maybe 2 pounds of FRESH homemade tofu!

http://al.godsdirectcontact.org/recipe/21e.htm

John