An ugly little tasty semi-disaster

Garlic tofu bites

These are Garlic Tofu Bites from a Whole Foods recipe I found on the web. They look more disastrous than they taste, fortunately.

Here's the idea: cubes of pressed tofu, marinated for 2 hours in a tangy sauce made of tamarind paste, soy sauce, ketchup, molasses, garlic, ginger and a couple other things. Then they are rolled in sunflower seeds and baked for 20 minutes.

The problem is that the marinade is thickened with cornstarch and becomes too thick for a sauce and too thin for a spreadable paste. If you are a Virgo, this is enough to give you a heart attack.

So when you take the cubes out of the marinade, it either slides off or clumps on, giving the attractive presentation seen in the photo. Your hands or utensil will be covered in gloopy marinade and so will the kitchen be.

The sliding gloop also creates a hella-mess on your baking sheet.

Thank goodness for Dawn Power Dissolve, which I also call "Oven Cleaner Lite." I am not shilling for them, but dang, that stuff cleans up some horrible messes without much scrubbing. Just make sure the room is well-ventilated and you rinse well.