Submitted by Allie Jones
(NOTE: Either night before or morning of get things soaking in the terriyaki marinade for best results!)
about a dozen kabob skewers
1 rather large or 2 smaller containers tofu (maybe a pound total?)
1 red bell pepper
1 gr bell pepper
1 can pineapple (already chopped into cubes best)
one white onion
veg oil
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup mirin
2 cloves garlic
ginger root (frozen), grated enough to make about 1 tsp, packed
Start with tofu - (don't need to press for this recipe) cut into about 1 inch cubes. you need to firm it up to make sure it doesn't disintegrate from the skewers on the grill. The best way to do this is to fry it. Start tofu simmering in a generous splash of oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. You might want to cover to keep oil from splattering, but not necessary. Only need to fry two sides of cubes (but try to make those sides be the ones with most surface area, if the cubes are not perfect cubes). Flip when underside is a light golden brown (remove when both sides of all cubes are light golden brown).
While tofu is cooking you can chop rest of veggies and prep the terriyaki sauce. Chop all veggies into ~ 1 inch pieces so will fit on skewers The basic terriyaki recipe is 3 parts soy sauce to 2 parts white sugar to 1 part mirin. For this recipe I would use a 1/4 cup for those parts (see exact measurements above). Put these 3 ingredients in a sauce pan on low heat to melt sugar. While that's happening finely mince the garlic and grate the frozen ginger and stir those in - as soon as sugar is melted its done. Put in a glass jar and put in freezer for a bit, b/c you don't want to immediately add the boiling sauce to your veggies to marinade b/c it will start cooking them.
Put all veggies (but I would hold off on the pineapple for now) into one large ziploc, put all tofu cubes in another. Add enough of the cooled T. sauce to each baggie so the veggies/tofu are more-or-less covered up with sauce (you will have extra T. sauce - which is good to have around - especially for marinating salmon for the grill - FYI). I reckon you will use between 1/2 to 2/3 of all your sauce for this recipe between the two bags. Place bags in fridge until time to assemble kabobs
When time to assemble kabobs, add pineapple to the marinating veggie bag and start soaking the skewers and give both things about 15-30 minutes. Then pre-heat your grill to med heat. If you forget to soak the skewers or only have a minute to soak them, its OK just line the top and bottom of the grill with aluminum foil to keep the very top and bottom (exposed, without veggies) parts of the skewer from burning. Grill for about 6-8 minutes, flip over once to grill other side for same amt of time, and serve (for people who like extra sauce on their kabobs you can use the extra terriyaki sauce to drizzle on them, or even a sweet thai chili sauce for a nice compliment, but they shouldn't really need either)
