Easter Weekend Part 2: Tofurky
Even though we don’t celebrate Easter, we do feel it’s a good excuse to cook a nice meal. And this year we decided to do something fun: buy a tofurky and try it out. 
Now, this wasn’t our first experience with tofurky, as we’d bought some of the slices to make hot ‘turkey’ sandwiches a while back. We both liked the slices well enough, so figured it would be fun to try an entire feast.
Reviews we’d heard of the product were mixed, of course. Some felt it was a great substitute for real turkey during holiday feasts. Others felt it was absolutely disgusting. One set of friends mentioned their cat quite liked the tofurky even when they didn’t! So we didn’t have very high expectations.
When you open the box, you are greeted by a lot of packaging. Here you can see the container of gravy, the bag of cherry-apple-potato dumplings, the tofu ‘wishstix’, and most amusing of all, the giant tube of turkey-flavoured tofu.
We weren’t put off by the tube of tofu, and pressed onward in our preparations.
First, do note you need to defrost everything EXCEPT the dumplings for at least 24 hours before cooking. Otherwise, the product will need 3+ hours in the oven to cook through.
The directions asked us to mix up a quick marinade. We chose the olive oil, soy sauce, and sage combo, but replaced the sage with a little rosemary and a little marjoram, since we don’t usually have sage around. The instructions asked us to put some veggies in with the roast, but we decided we didn’t really want any, opting for a fresh salad instead. Anyhow, you rub the entire tube of tofu in half the marinade, then cover completely and cook in a 350F oven for 1 hour 15 minutes. Once that time is up, take off the cover and pour on the rest of the marinade, then put back in the oven, uncovered, for 10 minutes. After that, just cool a bit and serve!
As for the rest of the feast, it was as simple as boiling and then panfrying the dumplings and warming up the gravy in the microwave until sufficiently heated through.
How did it taste? Actually, pretty good! It had a pleasant texture and tasted much like I remember turkey tasting. The stuffing was also really good, a nice mix of light herbs and wild rice. Rich still eats turkey or other meats on a semi-regular basis and he enjoyed it all as much as I did. The dumplings were also very good, and the gravy I’d be happy to buy just on it’s own for other things.
I think we’d buy it again, but only if we’re eating alone or are serving vegetarians or vegans. There’s something odd about pulling out a giant tube of tofu for family who usually eat meat. I figure if we’re entertaining, we can easily cook other things that taste great but are still festive for whatever holiday we’re celebrating.
Oh, and that ‘wishstix’, made of tofu jerky? I wouldn’t buy it on it’s own, but it was edible at least.