sunday brunch: chicken-fried tofu and waffles

I don't really understand why "chicken and waffles" became a thing in the Boston area recently, but it did--lots of friends on facebook were posting about how this or that new restaurant was offering chicken and waffles. I think it's a Southern thing that only recently made its way up north? ANYWAY, this inspired brunch a while back:

Chicken-fried tofu and waffles (with gravy and spinach). The waffles are a strange purplish color because I used blue corn meal (and the cornmeal waffle recipe from Vegan Brunch). It tastes the same as yellow/white corn meal, but doesn't sell as well at my parents' natural food store, so when it goes past date, I sometimes end up with an abundance. ;) I couldn't quite bring myself to deep fry in the morning, so the tofu isn't too heavy, either.

So final thoughts on the chicken-and-waffles thing? It was a lot of work for a morning brunch, so I see why people get excited about it being available at restaurants rather than making it at home... but the flavors together are delicious. I'd do it again!

sunday brunch: savory waffles and coconut bacon

This morning's brunch consisted of pancakes so full of yellow zucchini and corn that they were essentially veggie fritters. For savory pancakes like these, I use the Perfect Pancake recipe from Vegan Brunch, leaving out all the sweet stuff (cinnamon, syrup, vanilla). I added generous sprinkles of black pepper and cumin, and more salt... and 1 ear's worth of corn and an entire grated yellow zucchini.

Served with gravy made with a chickpea flour roux, and Jess Scone's Coconut-Balsamic Bacon.

The flour I've been using lately is Einkorn flour. Have any of you used this? It's a variety of wheat, supposedly one of the oldest known strains, and while the bag tells me it has a slightly nuttier taste than normal white flour, I don't taste that at all. It's something like 80% whole grain and acts (and tastes) like white flour in the recipes I've used it for, so I am a fan.

Vegan Brunch's tofu benny

I talk about brunch and brunch foods a lot around here, because Kevin is obsessed with brunch. I think this stems back to when he was a kid and his father made a big brunch every Sunday. So we have a nice brunch at least once a weekend. Vegan Brunch, therefore, is one of our most-used cookbooks.

I rarely make the tofu benny recipe directly out of the book, but Kevin does a great job with it, and it's worth it every time. Because I can't have tomatoes, we use lightly cooked zucchini (a replacement you may remember from my post on how to replace tomatoes). And we were lucky enough to have a very happily flowering chive plant the morning Kevin decided to make these. I really think that every meal looks (and tastes) nicer if there are flowers involved.

Sunday Brunch: my favorite: tofu "eggs"

This is the last Sunday Brunch of Vegan Mofo! So I'm posting a couple brunch-y dishes I haven't had a chance to write about individually: tofu "egg" dishes.

Back when I was vegetarian, my favorite brunch/breakfasty foods were egg-based dishes: scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelettes, French toast, etc. So as you may have noticed, our Sunday Brunches tend to be veganizations of eggy things. Tofu, in my opinion, does a good a job of mimicking the texture and ease of all the above dishes, and with a bit of black salt (a sulphur-tasting salt used in some Indian cuisine) to top it off, the flavor is essentially the same as well.

Tofu eggs florentine, made with fried tofu. It's only sort of "florentine," since I used spring greens instead of spinach.

Tofu eggs benedict, only Kevin's famous tofu bacon is on the side instead of on the "eggs." And a side of Japanese (white) sweet potato hash browns.

And, of course, scrambled tofu. It's not exactly easier than frying tofu to resemble fried eggs, but it's still really easy, and just strikes me as being a heartier breakfast.

 

 With sweet potatoes, the natural (or at least, ubiquitous, in our house) accompaniment to tofu "egg" brunch dishes.

Sunday brunch: gluten-free high-protein pancakes

I can't take any credit for this idea, only for the meal above. My mother is gluten intolerant, and her go-to gluten-free flour of choice is chickpea flour, which has worked for almost every recipe she's tried to de-glutenize... including the Vegan with a Vengeance/Vegan Brunch Perfect Pancakes, which here are made with all chickpea flour. You make the exact same recipe (which is readily available by googling it if you don't have the cookbooks, but you should have at least one of those cookbooks!), but swap out chickpea for wheat flour, one for one. For help binding, you also have to add a flaxmeal "egg" (one Tbsp flax meal mixed with 3 Tbsp water). The texture is the same, and the taste is only a little nuttier. My parents most often make blueberry pancakes with this, and you really can't tell at all that they're gluten-free.

Sunday Brunch: Kevin's omelette

In honor of my one-year wedding anniversary tomorrow, I'm going to show you one of my favorite recipes that my husband came up with:

Shredded tofu omelettes! Here with a sauce, some avocado, and a side of tempeh bacon.

Do you have any recipes that you won't make or learn how to make because you love to have other people make them for you? This is one of those for me. Kevin (the husband) came up with this himself, and while he has told me it's simple and I could do it, I refuse to learn because I like having it made for me. So I semi-stay out of the kitchen (as much as that's possible for me) when he makes it, but I'm under the impression that all he does is grate tofu with some egg-type spices (black salt, asafetida, turmeric), mix it all together, and saute it like an omelette. Sometimes it comes apart, but mostly it sticks together, and is great with almost any filling. I especially love spinach and Daiya on the inside.

Someday maybe I'll have Kevin write a guest post on how to actually make his awesome tofu omelettes,  but in the meantime I will just enjoy eating them.

Sunday Brunch/The Invisible Man: crashed sweet potatoes

Just like last year, around here, Sundays during VeganMofo are all about brunch food! However, I also like to write an entry for Banned Books Week each year, and from time to time I do a "food from literature" feature, so this is a multi-purpose entry.

Unfortunately, I have been so busy this week that I didn't get a chance to write about Banned Books Week until it was already over--it ended yesterday. But just because it's no longer Banned Books week doesn't mean you can't support the cause! Here's what I wrote about Banned Books Week last year:

I wrote about my feelings on banning books in my 2010 Banned Books Week entry, so I'll spare you a second diatribe, but if you care about intellectual freedom, first-amendment rights, or just about being able to read some really good books, I strongly recommend you participate. There are lots of ways to show your support for not banning books. The easiest, and in my opinion, the best, is simply to find out which books are most often banned, and borrow or request them from your library. Libraries can use records of how often a book is checked out to help support the argument against banning that particular book, so not only do you get to read a good book, but you support intellectual freedom! If you're handy with a camera, and have always wanted to read, say, the opening passage from Nabokov's Lolita to an audience, another way to show your support is with the Banned Books Week virtual read-out. You can upload yourself reading passages of your favorite banned books on their YouTube channel! Finally, your local library may be having Banned Books Week events, and I'm always a fan of supporting local libraries. Get involved!

Despite being an avid reader in high school and an English major with a focus on American literature in college and grad school, I never had to read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man for a class. It was always on my personal "to-read" list, but it was one of those that took me a while to get around to. When I finally picked it up last year, I couldn't believe no one had ever told me: Read this. This is an important book. So I'm telling you now. Above and beyond the story itself, Ellison's writing is beautiful, intelligent without being obscure, powerful without being heavy-handed. But the story he's telling is even more powerful. There isn't enough space here to do full justice to the symbolism-heavy plot, but in brief, a nameless young black man trying to make his way in 1940s America becomes first disillusioned with the struggle to conform to white America's expectations of blacks, and then with the political movements supposedly working for his rights; he aims to find ways black people in America can truly be seen by society.

Anyway, there is a pivotal moment for the narrator early in the book; he has spent much of his life conforming, as I said, to what white people expect from him. While he can't deny the color of his skin, he rebels against his upbringing, and struggles to be completely different from the Southern, small-town black men he was raised among. His--and society's--condemnation of his identity make his life difficult well through his education and his move to Harlem to seek out a job. When things seem their bleakest for him there, he stumbles upon a vendor selling baked yams (sweet potatoes) from a stand. The narrator buys one, and this baked yam, which to him is THE Southern food, THE black man's food, reminds him of his roots, his past, his heritage--and his identity. His sudden surge of pride in his racial heritage is the impetus for a larger event later in the chapter, one that shapes all of the rest of the events in the book. Oh man it is such a good book I'm getting excited writing about it.

Anyway, as you can see, the humble yam has a huge significance in this book. Ellison's narrator has this fantastic 5-page revelation about yams, and describes them in delicious detail. I remember reading this passage on the T and being so hungry for baked sweet potatoes. (For the record, in the US and Canada, the words "yam" and "sweet potato" refer to the same sweet-fleshed, often orange vegetable. The dry, starchy tuber known as a yam in Africa, South American, and parts of Asia is almost nonexistent in the US.)

But you all know how to bake a sweet potato, right? It's simple: Wrap a sweet potato in foil, put the oven on high, and bake it till you can pierce it with a fork. There's no fun in telling you how to bake one...

UNLESS IT'S A CRASHED SWEET POTATO!

I used oriental (white-fleshed) sweet potatoes because that's what I had. I doubt Ellison or his narrator would approve. 

I saw a recipe for "Crashed Hot Sweet Potatoes" on the dlynz blog, and I knew it was for me. I can't have hot pepper, so mine weren't Hot; all I had to do to adjust the recipe was leave out the chili pepper ingredients and sprinkle in a little allspice and extra black pepper for a warm flavor. You parboil thick slices of sweet potato (she says she might not parboil them next time, but I found this to be an essential step), crush them slightly, press the spice mixture onto them, then drizzle with olive oil before baking. They make a fantastic side to any meal, but as we like potatoes as a side for our brunches, I especially recommend it alongside a nice scrambled tofu!

Ellison's narrator rhapsodizes about baked sweet potatoes for 5 pages, but when it comes to this recipe, I'll just leave you with these three words: It. Is. Awesome.

tofu in a hole

There's a classic American breakfast food that I never got to try, or even really knew about, before going vegan. Though it's commonly known as "Toad in a Hole," it is really different from the British version of Toad in the Hole. The British version is Yorkshire pudding with sausage. The American version is toast with a hole cut in the center into which you add an egg. I looked it up online and discovered that Toad in a Hole is also known as Egg in a Basket, Bird's Nest, One-eyed Jack, and Gas House Egg. Do you all know about this dish? Do you have a different name for it?

Anyway, this morning the husband wondered if I could try to make a vegan version. I've seen one recipe for a vegan version, but it takes a lot more time/advanced preparation than I had this morning... so I rose to the challenge to create my own. (You should still click that link, though, if not for that recipe than for the list of different names for Toad in a Hole. So cool!)

So, here's my version.

I fried up the tofu with my normal tofu "fried egg" method--I rub a couple pinches of black salt, asafoetida, and pepper on tofu, then saute it in oil till the edges start to get a bit golden. Making the circles left me with some tofu scraps, which I blended with water, arrowroot, a bit of nutritional yeast, and the same fried-eggy seasonings to make a binder that would stick the tofu to the bread.

I mixed a spoonful of the binder with turmeric to make the little yolks on top, but that's only for looks. The binder mixture is in the little green cup.

Then all I had to do was saute the bread:

Once I flipped the bread, I put a quarter of the blended mixture into each hole, then quickly added the tofu circles. A minute or two longer, and it was done!

The arrowroot mixture helps keep the tofu in the hole.

This breakfast was delicious, and I no longer feel like I'm missing out on an American breakfast tradition! So now I'll share it with you.

Tofu in a Hole
Serves 2, is easily doubled/tripled/quadrupled. Black salt is totally worth your time/money if you like an "eggy" flavor to things; it has a sulphur smell that becomes milder with cooking and really helps things taste like eggs. Asafoetida is a powder that smells half garlicky and half oniony, and also helps with egginess. You only use a REALLY TINY amount at a time. Both are available at any Indian grocery store, or online.

1/2 block tofu
4 pieces of bread
1 tsp arrowroot powder
3 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast (optional, if not using, add a bit more arrowroot)
a few pinches of:
black pepper
black salt (optional, but IS the eggy flavor)
asafoetida (optional, but helps with eggy flavor)
turmeric (optional, only if you're doing a "yolk" look)
vegan margarine

Using a glass or small biscuit cutter, cut a hole in the center of each piece of bread. Use the same glass to press into your tofu to make circles that will fit in the bread. You can either cut the tofu into 4 slabs and then use the glass on them, or you can make one big tofu cylinder and cut that horizontally into 4 circles. It's up to you!

In a blender, combine the leftover corners of the tofu, the 1 tsp arrowroot powder (a scant 2 tsps if you don't use nutritional yeast), the water, nutritional yeast, a few pinches of black salt, and a tiny amount of asafoetida. Blend until smooth. This is your binder mixture. While it's blending, sprinkle a bit of black pepper, black salt, and asafoetida over the tofu slices, and rub into both sides.

Heat 1-2 tsps of margarine in a pan on the stove over medium. Saute the tofu circles for about 3 minutes, until the bottom is starting to turn golden. Flip, repeat. While the tofu is cooking, butter one side of each slice of bread.

(Optional, for the yolk [which is for looks only]: Before flipping, take a small spoonful of the binder mixture, and mix a sprinkle of turmeric into it. Put a small dollop in the center of each tofu slab, then flip and cook as directed above.)

Remove the tofu from the pan, add a little more margarine as necessary, then put the unbuttered side of the bread down in the pan. It should begin to brown in 3 or so minutes; check. Once the bottom has browned, flip it. Once you've flipped it, add a quarter of the binder mixture (should be a little more than a Tbsp) to the center of the hole in the bread, then press in a tofu circle (yolk side up, if you did a yolk) quickly. The binder mixture will come up around the edge of the tofu, that's good! Allow to cook until the bread is browned, again, like 3 minutes. You have Tofu in a Hole! Or Tofu in a Basket. Or Gas House Tofu. Whatever.

This parsnip mixture went really well with it:

It's parsnips and walnuts, sauteed with a bit of olive oil, salt and a splash of maple syrup. Yummmm.

Portrait of a Lady: European Potatoes

I love food and I love to read. As a result, each month, I combine these two interests in a post about food from literature. I mostly stick with books from classic literature, so you're likely to know the storylines anyway, but just in case you don't: warning: there may be spoilers ahead.

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People who read Henry James tend to have really dramatic opinions of him: he's either an amazing, complex writer, or he's the most boring author in the English language. I will let you all know right now that I come firmly down in the "Henry James is a genius" camp. I've read almost all of his works, and both my entrance essay and my writing sample for my master's program mentioned Henry James. 19th century realism is serious business for me.

BUT, for all the James I've read, I have always been a little embarrassed to admit I had not yet read Portrait of a Lady, one of his most well-known works. I decided to remedy that problem this fall.

The theme sounds ridiculous today, but the vast, vast majority of Henry James's fiction deals with a sophisticated Europe corrupting naive, pure Americans. An American who spent the majority of his life in England, James saw America, the New World, as having a fresh start, full of enterprising and moral people. They tend to be honest, sincere, a little awkward, and not in the least bit cunning. Europe is the exact opposite. James's European characters never say what they mean; they go through the forms of courtesy and morality but only to mask their real motives and intrigues. Inevitably, the corrupt, decaying Old World has a tragic, if not fatal, effect on the ingenue New World. They don't always do it on purpose, but James's Europeans, if not Europe itself, are downfall of his American characters.

Remember that James was writing at the end of the 19th century. The United States were still following Washington's precedent of isolationism. The Monroe Doctrine nicely kept Europe away from the Americas. We were removed enough to have our own culture, and access to culture was one based not on old, prejudicial class systems but on hard work and good decisions. James loved the idea of America, and was disappointed whenever Americans looked to Europe as an example of refinement or just of something better.

ANYWAY, Portrait of a Lady deals with these issues, but not in a dry history-lesson way like I did above. A young American woman, Isabel Archer, comes to England to meet her extended family, and while there comes into a lot of money. (Which, for James, is also a corrupting force.) Suitors are suddenly everywhere! Isabel is too innocent and pure to be protective or suspicious of herself or her money, and a few cunning, greedy people conspire to trick her out of her money, and out of her chance of a happy life, basically. There are good people, of course, who try to help her. IT'S SO GOOD AND INTENSE AND AWESOME. There's also a giant SECRET that you spend a good half of the book trying to figure out and then THINKING you have it figured out but no, that can't happen in this book, right? IT DOES. So yeah, I recommend this book, even though it's tragic. I've read reviews of it that found its ending ambiguous; let me know if you've read it, because I didn't think it was ambiguous at all and I'd be curious to hear that perspective.

So, onto the food! The best part. Okay, so James does offer a little proof that it's capable for Americans to interact with Europe without being corrupted. That proof is named Henrietta Stackpole. Henrietta is a journalist who ventures to Europe to 1.) write letters back to her paper about her impressions of Europe and 2.) try to meet European nobles. She has no interest in assimilating; she is American, and very much wants to maintain her American perspective. She does not put Europe on a pedestal like so many of James's more doomed Americans; she really believes America does everything better. She is a bit of a comic character (and has the most adorable courtship in all of James's works, in my opinion!), but she is also James's most viable option for intercultural communication without a tragic outcome.

When Henrietta first visits Isabel in England, she sits down to eat with Isabel and her relatives and starts quizzing the family about their connections to the House of Lords right away. She's not starstruck--she wants to discuss British politics. In part to shut her up, Lord Warburton (swoon!) says "Won't you have a potato?"

"I don't care much for these European potatoes," Henrietta says firmly.

Obsessed with food as I am, I had to know how European potatoes were prepared that Henrietta Stackpole's American tastes were against them, so I did a little research. While mashed (or sommmmetimes baked) potatoes were the rule in American kitchens in the 19th century, they were more likely to be served roasted at a wealthier English home. Obviously, they were talking about real (not sweet) potatoes, but since I can't eat potatoes, you're getting the sweet potato version.

European Potatoes
Only white (Japanese) sweet potatoes will work for this; the orange ones get too soft. Obviously you can also use (real) potatoes, but your cooking time might be 10-20 minutes longer. You can use any oil, but I stroooongly recommend olive since it's so tasty.

White Sweet Potatoes (Japanese Yams) - one small-to-medium potato per person
Oil (any kind works, but I prefer olive. At least 1/4 cup, but the more you use, the crispier they'll get)
Salt

Preheat your oven to 425. Fill a pot with water and set it on the stove on high. Chop potatoes into large chunks; I'd say at least 2 inches. You can peel them if you want, but I like the skins. Put the chunks into the water as soon as you chop, since white sweet potatoes start to brown when the flesh is exposed to air. Bring to a boil, and allow to boil for at least ten minutes, until you can poke the potatoes with a fork. (It doesn't have to go all the way through, though--as long as the edges are tender.)

Here comes the weird-sounding part. Pour all the water out of the potato pan, then put a cover on it... AND SHAKE IT LIKE CRAZY. The idea is to bang up all the edges of the potatoes, so they get crispy.

They'll look like this when you're done.

Now take out a deep baking pan large enough to fit all the potatoes in a single layer. I've used a roasting pan and my glass baking pans, and both were fine. Pour the oil into the pan. Here's the part where the amount is up to you: the more you use, the tastier and crispier they'll be, plus they won't stick as much to the pan. But you want at least enough to easily and completely coat the bottom of the pan. Add the potatoes, and roll them around a little (with a spoon is cleanest) so all sides have touched the oil. Sprinkle on some salt.

Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from oven and use a spatula or spoon to flip them. The down-facing sides should have browned and all the side should be starting to get crispy. Return to oven for 10 more minutes, then check again: all sides should be crispy and golden to golden-brown. Remove from oven, sprinkle with a little more salt, and serve!

(The baking time can vary based on how long you boiled them and even how much oil is involved, so you may find you need a bit more time.)

They are good for brunch or for dinner! Because of the oil, they're a little decadent and VERY filling.

Next month I'll try to get back to once-a-week posting.

Sunday Brunch: pancakes and crepes

My "blog photos" folder is going to be so empty after this month! Which is a good thing, since I tend to stockpile pictures for too long. Since there's only one day left after today, this is probably the last "epic post," and it's a delicious one.

Pancakes! I've gotten over my hatred of making pancakes; I'm much more patient now and don't burn them. Above, pancakes with blueberry sauce and cashew creme. Below, pancakes (I think they were lemon-flavored?) with a raspberry sauce.

And these are red, white, and blueberry pancakes!

Topped with soyatoo whipped topping.

This is the coconut pancake recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance topped with simmered peaches and hazelnuts.

You may have noticed a trend by now: I like to have fruit with pancakes. Unless they're SAVORY pancakes!

These were mirepoix pancakes (carrots, onion, celery) topped with gravy.

And finally, a sort of pancake: crepes!

These aren't filled with anything too exciting: fruit, cashew cream, and each one has a different seasoning. (I think I went cinnamon/blueberry, nutmeg/clove, and ginger/raspberry.)

So that concludes our "Sunday Brunches" this month. What are your favorite brunch foods that I didn't mention?

Sunday Brunch: scrambled tofu

I had a scrambled tofu post last year, so I think I've said almost everything I have to say about it. But it's our default brunch at our house, because it's quick, easy, filling, and variable enough that we don't get sick of it, as we change up the ingredients and spices almost every time. So here are a couple pictures of recent scrambled tofu brunches!

With a mix of garnet and white sweet potatoes.

This is what we had this morning. We were in a hurry, as we wanted to go to some open houses.

This is from a while ago. Sometimes I want to make our brunches look snappy.

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!

Sunday Brunch: Tofu Benedict/Florentine

Did I ever mention that I have a garden? I have a container garden out on our fire escape. I kept meaning to take pictures of it and to write about it this summer, but I guess I just never got around to that. Well, there was a cold snap in Boston earlier this week, and my basil decided it was time to pass on. I've been harvesting as much of my little garden as I can this week, but I managed to snap a quick picture this morning.

It's not as abundant as it was in the summer. The dill went to seed a while back, and the chard is actually replacing the cilantro, which lived its life and died over the course of the summer. Container gardening is actually pretty easy, it turns out, as long as you don't forget to water the plants every other day. That almost killed my garden a couple times this year.

ANYWAY, early on in the summer, when the garden was just starting up, the fiance requested tofu florentine for brunch. Not having spinach (which, I discovered, turns "benedict" into "florentine"--I had no idea), I used some tiny new arugula from our garden just to top the potatoes--microgreens!

You know how food people always say arugula is a "peppery" green? Meaning it has a little kick to it like pepper does? For some reason, I've always tasted that kick as being rather sulfury, and therefore eggy. So for me, arugula is the perfect green to serve with brunches involving tofu eggs. Arugula has a really short growth cycle; it takes less than a month to mature. So I've replanted every three weeks, and we had arugula all season.

I made tofu florentine again this morning, and we had what is probably the last batch of arugula for the season on top.

(Mmmm and the cheesy sauce is still steaming.) Goodbye, little container garden! And thanks for adding so much green to our meals... including our Sunday brunches!

Sunday Brunch: Omelettes

A quick post, since we spent most of the day at a friend's wedding. I was worried I wouldn't get home in time to post! But phew, just in time (it's 11:55pm as I write this).

On Sundays, the fiance makes brunch! (I usually make it on Saturday.) When he asks for a request, I almost always demand the omelette from Vegan Brunch. It's really tasty, and a good way to use up extra veggies as fillings!

This one is stuffed with the fiance's famous tofu bacon (I'll try to get that recipe up this month!), daiya cheese, and some veggies, with sauteed carrots on the side. Yummmm.

food from around the world (ie, internet)

I eat my lunch at my desk at work. Everyone does on my team, but even at my last job, when people would eat their lunches in the little kitchen area, I preferred to eat at my desk. When I eat my lunch, I take a little "break" by reading blogs; mostly food blogs, some design blogs. My lunchtime blog cruising has led to a stockpile or recipes I've built up; vegan ones I want to try, non-vegan ones I want to veganize, etc. Often the recipes I read about during lunch become the recipes I make for dinner.

As with the following recipes! All came from various food blogs, with the exception of the cabbage and the cheesecake, which came from recipe sites. But all came from my lunchtime internet cruising.

For the record, if you like the kinds of recipes I link to here, and if you like what's on my blog in general, you should check out my links page, which I update with my favorite blogs/websites more often than I update my blogroll to the right.
First, Okonomiyaki, large savory Japanese pancakes! Trina of Your Vegan Mom posted a recipe for okonomiyaki and some tasty sauce to put on them, and it looked so delicious (and I love Japanese food so much) I had to try it all.

Because Trina recommended okonomiyaki as a snack, I figured they might be too light for a meal, so I served them with miso soup and roasted squash. Turns out they aren’t too light; even just having one each along with the sides, the boyfriend and I were overstuffed when we finished. But in a good way.

For the record, this recipe is pretty darn foolproof. Not only did I cut my vegetables much larger than I was apparently supposed to, but I’m also one of those people who always burns the first pancake to a crisp when making breakfast—and look! My first attempt was a little brown but looked totally passable.

You can see Trina’s "inauthentic" but addicting sauce in the background. I had to put a cover on it because I was “taste testing” it entirely too much while making the okonomiyaki.

In a similar vein, a couple months ago, I tried the Korean version of okonomiyaki: Savory Tofu Pancakes from Alien’s Day Out. I had to add a couple tablespoons of water to the recipe to get the batter into a workable texture, but I may have just drained my tofu more thoroughly beforehand.

We had them with some seaweed salad and stir-fried rice noodles.

They packed up adorably for lunch the next day, too; they would make for perfect bento lunches.

For those more in favor of continental cuisine, I’ve also been crushing on the "Mastering the Art of French Cooking: the Vegan Version" blog, where Affectioknit is veganizing Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipe by recipe. She has some ingenious versions of some very not-vegan food. The boyfriend really likes her omelette recipe and has made it for me twice. The results are tasty. The first time he tried it, he overcooked the first omelette a little, so it’s browner than intended, but I’m posting the picture because it really gives you an idea of how eggy the finished version can look:

After the first omelette, he hit his stride. Here’s mine with fillings (note that I’d already started eating it. I have very little willpower):

Omelette filled with pesto and mixed veggies. Oh and in related non-egg news, I just bought some black salt! Normally when recipes call for it, I improvise by adding a touch of asafetida, which does lend a light sulphury (and therefore eggy) flavor to things, but I’m looking forward to trying the black salt.

What’s that to the left of my omelette, you ask? Why, it is a PANCAKE BAR.

Pancake bars are like granola bars, but made out of pancakes. I encountered the idea for pancake bars on the Kitchn website, where in turn they’d adapted it from a Martha Stewart recipe. I didn’t actually follow that recipe, but I did steal the idea. I made a double batch of “perfect pancakes” from Vegan with a Vengeance. I doubled because the recipe on that site calls for almost twice the amount of flour, so I figured I was making the amount of batter about even this way. I didn’t want to make apple ones, so I opted for cranberries; I added a cup of dried cranberries to the batter. You can't opt out of the streusel, though! If you want to eat these pancake bars on the go, or serve them at a large gathering, you can’t top them with maple syrup; this gives them a sweet topping without the mess. I ended up pouring my batter into a 9x13 baking pan AND into a loaf pan, because the total amount of vegan batter was a little more than the called-for non-vegan batter. Maybe that was still too much, as my baking time was also 10-15 minutes longer than the Kitchn website recommends. Anyway, for a single batch of VwaV pancakes, maybe try a 7x11 pan, or a 9x13 but shorten the baking time a little.

Not only are pancake bars novel and cool, but they’re also tasty and practical. I made them for a large brunch the boyfriend and I hosted, because I wanted to have pancakes but couldn’t serve normal ones because 1.) I hate standing over the stove forever making pancakes, 2.) I didn’t have time to do so with all of the other things I was busy making, and 3.) I didn’t want to have to worry about keeping pancakes warm on our buffet table. They were a giant hit.

Another interesting recipe I found on the Kitchn was for "butter dip biscuits." You know how it can be annoying to make biscuits because you have to cut in all the butter/fat? Not so with these; you melt the butter in your baking pan first, then make a butter-free dough, cut it into strips, and lay them in the butter. As they cook, they soak up the butter. It’s a very straightforward recipe to make and to veganize; substitute butter with earth balance or other vegan margarine, and the liquid milk with water or nondairy milk. They’re cute, and they taste pretty much like normal biscuits. The bottoms were a little too firm, but maybe I overcooked them a bit? The boyfriend called them "biscuit cookies" because he thought they were closer to cookie texture.

I served them as part of a tasty German meal; I made the Veganomicon beanballs with seasonings that were more German than Italian (onions, garlic, caraway seed), and included some sweet-and-sour red cabbage over pasta.

Not to be too dramatic, but I have had a lot of cabbage in my time, and guys, THIS WAS THE BEST CABBAGE RECIPE I HAVE EVER HAD. It’s incredibly simple; the recipe calls only for butter, cabbage, sugar, and balsamic vinegar (with salt and pepper to taste). but the flavors work beautifully together.

The last picture I have for you is of a recipe I made a while ago (I think last summer?), but it’s really relevant right now, since it would be a fantastic Valentine’s Day recipe:

Individual Raw Strawberry Cheesecakes from this recipe at the PPK. The recipe is for a whole cake, but you can divide it up into muffin cups. The components (cashews, coconut oil, strawberries [organic, guys! you should always stick with organic strawberries]) are a little expensive, but if ever there was a reason to splurge, this cheesecake is it. You can see I decided against the strawberry coulis, and no one missed it.

That brings me to the end of my cooking-around-the-internet post! I still owe you guys a "food from literature" post this month; I’ll do that early next week. I’ve read a book for it (Wide Sargasso Sea); now I’m deciding on the recipe. I was also thinking of posting a little house tour sometime this month, or at least a kitchen tour, so you can see where the vegetalion magic happens. What do you think?

weekend brunch: breakfast sandwich

My tea is trying to support my VeganMoFo blogging! For all the motivational quotes I've seen on the Yogi Tea tags, that's the first time I've ever seen this one. Ha.


If you can't read it properly, it says "Keep up."

Good timing, tea--the week around Thanksgiving is the tricky part of having Vegan MoFo in November. This week the boyfriend and I are visiting my family in upstate NY, where we have little internet access. I wrote this post a little ahead of time, and it'll be brief.

It's the weekend, so: Weekend Brunch!

I made this Ham, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich for the boyfriend's birthday a while back. I bought Yves Canadian Bacon for the "ham," but I made the nutritional-yeasty cheese sauce myself. (There's only so much storebought fake stuff I want in a meal...). Some simple scrambled tofu, and English muffins with margarine made it deeelicous, though really messy to eat. The home fries on the side are white sweet potatoes, which aren't as sweet as their orange counterparts.

Looking at this picture makes me want to make it again really soon.

weekend brunch: sunchoke hash browns

In yesterday's entry, I mentioned that you can use sunchokes as replacements for potatoes, including in hash browns. Here is some evidence!

Sunchoke Hash Browns. This probably about 1.5 pounds of sunchokes, grated and cooked, ready to serve. They cook down quite a bit, but take a while. I used quite a bit of Earth Balance at the bottom of the pan, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and (I think) I put in a little water at one point to prevent them from drying out too much as they cooked. They took 15-20 minutes on medium-high heat, and I had to stir fairly often. All the cooking made them lose their characteristic crispness (which is good if you're making hash browns!), but the sunkchokes retained their fresh taste. I also included a finely chopped onion, which provided a really good flavor. I don't think you'd be able to fool anyone into thinking they're potatoes, but they satisfy hash-brown cravings and they're delicious in their own right.

weekend brunch: "fronch" toast and the epic PPK Vegan Mofo survey

This morning I tried my hand at the "Fronch" Toast recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. I'm a little surprised I hadn't tried a chickpea-flour batter, since I LOVE French toast, but I guess my go-to for French Toast is my own cashew mixture for the batter.

The chickpea flour mixture is great, though. Whereas cashew-based batter is thick and a little sweet, this was light and toasted up evenly. I only had a chickpea-fava bean flour mix on hand, but it worked fine. Maybe my bread was a lot more absorbent than Isa's, because it made enough for six delicious pieces, though the recipe says 12-15 (granted, that's probably from bread like baguettes).

I served them with a blueberry sauce and cinnamon-toasted pecans and kept me and the boyfriend full almost all day--which was good, because we then spent hours at the opening of the MFA's new Art of the Americas wing! It was awesome, and if any of you readers are Bostonians or visiting Boston, I recommend it.

Now! A bunch of us at the PPK compiled an EPIC PPK VEGAN MOFO SURVEY that we all said we'd fill out today. Here's mine!

What's your favorite spice or spice blend?
Black pepper. So handy. I go through phases sometimes, thyme having been the last one. Adobo powder is really convenient as a flavor enhancer for pretty much any recipe.

You have $20 to spend on fresh groceries and produce for the whole week (with a fairly well stocked pantry of dry goods, legumes, grains, and spices). what do you buy?
Spinach, tofu, onions, garlic. They're all so versatile; you can use them in almost every cuisine, in any (savory) dish. Plus they're super tasty.

What's your favorite way to make tofu?
I like to cut it into slabs and bake it in oil, some vinegar, and herbs. It gets a nice firm texture, and you can alter the herbs you use and add other things like soy sauce to make it fit whatever kind of meal you're having.

Vegan guilty pleasure?
Tings. I eat so many of those at a time.

If you could make anyone vegan, who would it be?
Paula Deen, maybe? Because she makes such decadent food, and it'd be cool to see what awesome Earth Balance-laden dishes she'd come up with. On a more serious note, all of the food writers who champion putting bacon in everything frm vodka to chocolte because it's so amazing and versatile and--ugh.

If you could only read one other vegan blog, what would it be?
Such a tough call! If she updated every day, probably Your Vegan Mom, since she has a pretty wide repertoire.

Were you always interested in cooking, or did veganism change the way you saw and interacted with food?
It's hard to say for sure, because I went vegan in college, just before I started cooking for myself, so my learning to cook happened at the same time as my becoming vegan. I did used to like baking in high school. Anyway, I've always been interested in food thanks to my amazing mother, who sees food as both physical and psychological nourishment, so I learned pretty early on to think about how food makes you feel, and the difference that good-quality ingredients make.

Excluding analogs, what new things have you tried that you probably wouldn't have as an omni?
Nutritional yeast. If you eat cheese, I don't think you ever really encounter nutritional yeast. Also, raw foods, probably.

What is the one vegan staple that everyone seems to love, but you can't get behind?
Processed vegan cheese. Daiya's okay in small doses, but all fake cheese is so salty, and I'd just rather not eat food that doesn't look like its ingredients. Also, vegan chicken broth. I tend to use unsalted bouillon when I use it at all, so to me the vegan chicken broth just tastes like icky brown salt water.

What was your first "wow, I'm such a stereotypical vegan" moment?
I don't know, I'm not sure I am a stereotypical vegan, or that I can actually imagine what the stereotypical vegan is/does.? I guess the fact that even at fancy events like weddings, I always have granola bars and/or fruit stashed in my purse.

First recipe you veganized?
I have no idea. Probably a baked good. Possibly Rava Laddu?

What would you like to veganize, but haven't yet?
Croissants! I used to love croissants so much. I'm going to try my hand at them sometime, though. I just have to have enough money to buy the multiple tubs of Earth Balance such an endeavor would require.

Favorite kitchen utensil/appliance?
I guess "a good sharp knife" is too obvious an answer, but mostly it's me and the kitchen knife, BFFs! The food processor, while dying a slow death, is also my faithful companion.

Most disastrous kitchen failure?
Waffles. Every time! I love waffles, and have a nice waffle maker that the boyfriend got me a while back, but something happens where I can't get them out of the waffle maker every time. And I know it's me, because the boyfriend has done it just fine with the same waffle maker. (Last time was a disaster for him, too, so maybe it's NOT just me?)

First vegan cookbook?
I'm pretty sure it was Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet.

What question about being vegan do you HATE answering?
"Where do you get your protein?" If you ask me this question, you are not showing your concern for my well-being. You are showing your ignorance regarding food and the human body.

If you could tell the world one thing about vegans, what would it be?
Most of us eat well, and most of us eat a lot. All of us aren't undernourished and gnawing on celery all day.

Funniest vegetable?
Any veggie with greens that I can shake around like maracas. I find this hilarious, even if the boyfriend thinks it's weird.

What is a family recipe you have veganized?
Some of my favorite recipes are ones passed down through my family! A very mayonnaisey pasta salad, my great-grandmother's blueberry pie, my mother's double-fudge brownies.

Weirdest food combination ?
I like all food (that I can eat); I guess I don't consider much weird. The boyfriend says it's weird that I cut dates open and stuff them with peanut butter. I'd say probably either daifuku or sweet seaweed snacks.

Is there something you wish you could veganize, but can't/couldn't?
I really want to make a cheesy soufflé some day, but I never had one before I was vegan, so I have no idea how one could ever veganize it.

Favorite ways to prepare tofu, seitan, tempeh, any other vegan proteins?
Well, other than baked tofu (like I said above), I like turning seitan into sausages, and I like breading and then frying tempeh like fried fish.

Are your pets vegan?
I live with the boyfriend's three cats and two geckos. None of them are vegan (except the boyfriend).

Favorite non-dairy milk?
I don't or rarely drink non-dairy milk, so it's mostly about how it behaves in cooking. I used to love Organic Valley's soymilk, but later found out that their vitamin D comes from lanolin, so now I go back and forth between hemp milk, which is pretty decent but is rarely organic, and almond milk which is also hard to get organic at our grocery store. I only ever buy unsweetened, unflavored non-dairy milk.

I hope you all had a great weekend!