Sunday Brunch: Egg, Ham, and Cheese Sandwich

GUYS I GOT MARRIED YESTERDAY.

This means that I am currently in upstate NY helping my family clean up the wedding venue and saying goodbye to the last of our out-of-town guests. I wrote this post ahead of time and have it set to update automatically. But if you're reading this--I GOT MARRIED YESTERDAY!!!

Obviously I will post some pictures of the wedding when I have them, but in the meantime, it's Sunday, and that means Sunday Brunch!

Today's Sunday Brunch is one that's dear to my heart. I made it early on in my relationship with the fiance husband (!!!omg!!!), when he only ate at my place once or twice a week. I always wanted those 1-2 meals to be really special and really interesting and really awesome, because I hoped they would reflect that I, therefore, was really special/interesting/awesome. I think it worked.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time on this one, having prepared all my ingredients a day in advance so it would seem effortless and amazing. It wasn't effortless, but it WAS amazing:

Vegan Egg Ham & Cheese Sandwich

It's made up of a nutritional-yeast-based cheese sauce, scrambled tofu (with spinach), and tofu ham, all on an awesome bagel. By the time we set to eating this, I forgot all about wanting to impress the (at the time) boyfriend and was impressed with myself! I went vegetarian long before I'd had an opportunity to try a breakfast sandwich like this at a restaurant, and I was psyched to be able to make one of my own.

The tofu "ham" was an invention of my own, one that I'm quite proud of:

It's tofu baked with olive oil, soy sauce, and liquid smoke for a hammish flavor. (Is hammish a word? It should be; it's fun to type and to say). But color was key to me! I wanted it to look like those reddish-pink patties that always seem to be in meaty breakfast sandwiches. So before I baked/seasoned it, I let it sit for a while...

...COVERED IN SHREDDED BEETS! I was shredding the beets for a different recipe when the idea hit me. The tofu didn't really soak up any beet flavor, but did soak up the color. I scraped away the beets to use in the other recipe, and baked the tofu with above-mentioned seasonings. The baking process gave it its slightly more tame color.

I only made that labor-intensive breakfast sandwich that one time... but I guess it served its purpose, since I am now a happily married lady!