Baked Garlic Lemon Tofu

As a workout-aholic, i'm always looking for new ways to add protein without depleting my wallet.  If I could afford to, I'd fill my blog with salmon, swordfish and lobster recipes.. but tofu is going to have to cut it.  I buy tofu weekly, and usually just grill it stove top with my veggies, scramble it with cheese and onions, or toss it in a store bought thai sauce and throw it in the oven. The nice thing about tofu is that it soaks up any flavor and is incredibly versatile.

Drum roll please.

Chelsea's incredibly easy and delicious Lemon Pepper Tofu

Ingredients:

• Firm tofu - I like Nasoya light, because even if I ate the entire carton I'd only tally up 160 calories.  Best part, at 40 cal per serving you get 7 grams of protein. Unbelievable!
• Juice from a full squeezed Lemon - Fresh is always better.  I used the squirt bottle for this one though and squeezed a little bit of fresh orange.
• 3 tsp Honey Mustard - I like helmans.  at 10 cal/tsp and 1 g of sugar, it's not too bad.  I like the real sweet flavor.  if you don't have any honey mustard, do 2 tsp of mustard and 1 of maple syrup & a sprinkle of brown sugar if you're using real maple syrup over the fake high fructose corn syrup kind. 
• 2 tsp fresh ground pepper - if you're using regular table pepper use 3 tsp
• 2 tsp of garlic powder 
• 1 tsp of onion salt 
• 1 tsp of basil - if you're using fresh basil, only use a sprinkle
• Sprinkle of rosemary
• Optional: a few pearl onions, mushrooms, or halved shallots

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Remove tofu from package.  wrap in paper towels and place on a plate with a heavy pan on top to drain all the excess water.  Flip tofu after 10 minutes, repeat on other side. 
3. Cube tofu into 1x1 squares or 1x2 rectangles
4. Whisk all other ingredients in a small bowl.  When blended pour 1/3 of the mixture evenly on the bottom of a baking dish.
5. place tofu into dish and cover evenly with remaining mixture. Add onions, mushrooms, etc into dish.
6. Sprinkle top with garlic powder and pepper.  I sloppily added a little more honey mustard to experiment on a few pieces.  They actually came out really good, but I think it was because of the sweetness of the helmens honey mustard.  If you don't have any honey mustard, sprinkle some brown sugar on top! Just a pinch. 
7. Bake for 20 minutes, take out, flip and sprinkle with garlic, pepper and basil. 
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes longer, or until firm and browned. 
9. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving. 

Best accompaniments: 

*Grilled asparagus with a balsamic reduction glaze

*Sauteed green beans with slivered almonds, shaved parmesan and olive oil

*Honey glazed carrots

Enjoy :)