The salads of my people
During Passover, observant (or even kinda-observant) Jews do not eat leavened bread. This means no subs, no doughnuts, no pizza--and no croutons in your salad.
Until now! For I have invented the breadless crouton to spare my people and the righteous and health-conscious gentiles from boring salads! Let me show you it.
Take a block of extra-firm tofu and drain it. I realize I have been putting up a lot of tofu recipes where I say to drain the tofu, and I haven't explained how to do that. Not very empowering of me! You can drain tofu in a lot of different ways, but here's what I do: put a flat cheese grater over a bowl, put the tofu on the grater, put a flat-bottomed bowl or plate on the tofu, and put a can of beans or something in the bowl. Let sit for 30 minutes or longer. The idea is to press some of the liquid out of the tofu, and give it somewhere to drain into--them's the technical specs, work it out as you will.
Heat the oven to 400. Cut the drained tofu into cubes about 1/2" all around. Spread them out on a nonstick baking sheet. You can spray them with olive oil Pam, but you don't have to. Sprinkle heavily with onion powder, garlic powder, and anything else you like--Cavendar's would be good, and I like cumin because it nicely complexifies tastes. (If you feel that cumin body-odorifies tastes, then don't use cumin.) Bake for about 25 minutes, turning once, until croutons are nice and chewy.
A spinach salad with tofu croutons? Hello, can you say nutrition? Have one of these for lunch and you'll realize what Popeye's been on about all that time.
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Welcome to Miss Conduct’s blog, a place where the popular Boston Globe Magazine columnist Robin Abrahams and her readers share etiquette tips, unravel social conundrums, and gossip about social behavior in pop culture and the news. Have a question of your own? Ask Robin using this form or by emailing her at missconduct@globe.com.
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Robin Abrahamswrites the weekly "Miss Conduct" column for The Boston Globe Magazine and is the author of Miss Conduct's Mind over Manners. Robin has a PhD in psychology from Boston University and also works as a research associate at Harvard Business School. Her column is informed by her experience as a theater publicist, organizational-change communications manager, editor, stand-up comedian, and professor of psychology and English. She lives in Cambridge with her husband Marc Abrahams, the founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, and their socially challenged but charismatic dog, Milo.
