Vegan Mofo: Breakfast Taters

First off, I'd like to apologize for all of the super awful pictures I've been sharing with you lately. There seems to be something wrong with my Canon Rebel XS. Every time I attach my flash to it, the flash doesn't go off. Has this happened to anyone else?

Terrible and unappealing images aside, these potatoes were  fantastic! I did standard potato spices: garlic, paprika, crushed red pepper and some nooch. The city I live in is partaking in the Occupy movement that began on Wall Street. Saturday was my morning to make breakfast for everyone! I served this and someone brought instant grits to serve with it. This made for some full and happy protesters.

Also: A friend and I made cat signs. Here are some of our catchy slogans.

1. Anar-kitty: Smash Catipalism!
2. We ain't kitten around!
3. Wall Street Fat Cats
4. We are the 99 purr-cent!

Hodge Podge of Sorts

I haven't been posting much lately because a) I haven't had access to the interwebz and b) things have been a touch whirl-windy because Tybrus and I just moved into a new apartment, which would explain my lack of interwebz and the access to it.

Nonetheless, I have been cooking up a storm, despite the fact that the cute, rustic stove in my new apartment has broken heating coil along with a broken hinge so the oven door can't shut which only adds to wildly incorrect temperature gauge. I've been using the side oven to cook in for the time being but I mean, srsly, when I set it to broil it barely reaches 350.

Breakfast classic: beans on toast, topped with cheddar Teese and accompanied by some English breakfast tea.



Give peas a chance! Peas?!?!

So, in my infinite wisdom, I discovered that most split pea soup recipes require a ham hock. Bleh! Ham might be one of the most unethically farmed meat products in the industry and just seems totally unnecessary in an already delicious soup. It ended up thicker than I wanted, but by no fault of the recipe- Ty had gotten an immersion blender for his birthday and I got excited. I went a bit overboard on the blending.


an awful picture of some superb stuffed shells

I stuffed the shells with my tvp mixture and some ricotta. I made up my own tofu ricotta cheese instead of depending on old faithful- Sara Kramer's recipe- and it was great. I used silken and it had a better texture than the crumbly medium tofu. My best shells yet! (I ate about 9 of them in one night!)


Asian noodles with zucchini and tofu

This meal reaffirmed the fact that I FORKING HATE WATER-PACKED TOFU!!!1 It takes forever to prepare, it doesn't hold flavor well at all, and it has an awful texture. I had some tomato carrot flavored noodles that I picked up from the Asian market and wasn't sure how to use them- I didn't know how strong the flavors would be. I figured squash would work well with the flavors. I should've left it at that! But, nooooooo, I gotta go around sticking friggin' soy in everything! Srsly, never again. It wasn't a total loss, though.

And now, a resolution: I will be leaving town to visit my father, step mother, and siblings this coming Monday, and when I return, I plan to do a raw diet. I don't know if I'll necessarily abide by the cooking temperature boundaries or not. If anyone has any cooking tips, recipes, or advice let me know. I imagine it is going to be a tad trying for me being that I eat carbs and gluten like it's going out of style (stuffed shells are a testament to this) but I'd really like to get healthy and maybe drop a few pounds. Wish me luck!

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

The only thing richer than chocolate chip pancakes for brunch are the damn Waltons. (Go ahead, slap your knee. We both know you want to.) Dripping with Earth Balance and and maple syrup, these are heart attack waiting to happen. A delicious heart attack.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes:
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
3 tbs Splenda (yes, I am yet another slave to the Splenda con)
1 cup soy or rice milk
2 tbs canola oil
substitute for one egg (I use Ener-G)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup chocolate chips (or more)

Heat a large pan on medium-low heat before mixing ingredients. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl and wet in a separate medium bowl. Combine mixtures. Add your chips until well combined. I find it is best to use a ladle to spoon your batter in to the pan to get the perfect measurements for a pancake. Also, I discovered that it far better to have someone to share these pancakes. Pancakes are obviously the kind of food that requires company.

French Toast

Aside from breakfast casseroles, french toast was no doubt my favorite brunch food growing up. It's safe to say that I hadn't had french toast since I became vegan until I tried this recipe. It was really easy and didn't disappoint. I used Ezekiel bread for this recipe, which was great because the bread comes frozen. After it thaws, it's kind of tough, which is the preferred texture for vegan french toast. Here's the recipe for the french toast. I cut the recipe in half since I was only cooking for two, and I used half vanilla soy milk and half regular. It was still really sweet.

Loose leaf tea! And, a hearty breakfast.

So, Dave and I are proud tea fanatics. Really, we're passionate about caffeine, in general. It's easy to support this addiction because I work at Starbucks, which entitles me to either a free pound of coffee a week or a pack of Tazo brand tea, either of my choosing, of course. Because, there's always such an abundance of both at the apartment, we very rarely try other kinds of teas, let alone superior loose leaf.















For about $30, we got like, 6 tin cans of loose leaf tea from Adagio. Each small tin is good for about 10 cups of tea. We got the green tea starter package, which came with the tea steeper thing and four kinds of green tea: gunpowder, citron green, genmai cha, and hojicha.
And, damn. So good. This thing is so easy to use and I'm pretty mad that I didn't manage to conjure up this simple design.
















Dave and I also ordered two extra sample size tea cans. I'm a huge Earl Grey junkie and Dave's been wanting to try darjeeling tea. There ya' have it.
















Along with our starter set, Earl Grey sampler, and darjeeling sampler, we got complimentary stuff, too! Because I entered in my date of birth when setting up my account, they sent me Scorpio tea. I guess they have a line of astrological or horoscope teas. I have no idea what it is, really, but it smells fantastic. I know that there is real dark chocolate in it, but I don't know if it contains dairy. I still need to email Adagio and find out. Along with it, we got one of those weaved flowers that blooms in your tea water. Talk about clever fuckin' marketing. They send me one of those, but not the pretty transparent tea pot to make it in. Alright, Adagio, you got me.





















And, above you see it in action. Setting atop your tea mug pushes something up that makes space for the liquid to come out but not the loose leaf tea. And, that mug- it rules. It was one of Dave's birfthday presents and it have the actual molecule for caffeine on it. How perfect.















And, this morning I made brunch which is probably the best meal of the day. I think I've assigned myself this recipe as my signature tofu scramble recipe. It's kind of an adaptation of Julie Hasson's and the one I posted from It Ain't Meat Babe. It was accompanied by some tempeh bacon from VWAV, which I wasn't very happy with. Abrupt post ending, commence.

Tofu Scramble and a Moment of Weakness

Chocolate weakness, that is. This was intended to be the chocolate chip cookie recipe from VWaV plus oats and walnuts. But, I was daydreaming, as I often do, and my EB wasn't the right temperature. This led to the texture's demise. The cookie dough wouldn't form into little balls to press out, so I threw it all into a baking dish and patted it out evenly. A little crumby,
but good.

So, my current favorite food blog is It Ain't Meat Babe. I really enjoy reading up on this little lady's food encounters. Her New Year's paella will be gracing my kitchen very soon. Anywho, I tried out her signature recipe for a vegan classic, tofu scramble. Um, awesome? I think it was the paprika that did it for me.

Served on a warm pita. Noms!

Faux Eggz Benny

mmmm. Breakfast for dinner.

Alright, quick post. I got this from Sara Kramer and Tanya Barnard's book, How it All Vegan. Dave said this was his favorite thing I've cooked so far. He liked it even more than Baked Mac 'n Cheez, WHAT! (Dave has quite the ongoing love affair with my baked mac 'n cheez.)

Anyway, this was super easy to make. Prep time totaled maybe about a half hour. I served the tofu on some frozen Ezekiel wheat bread, topped it with a tomato slice, and the awesome sauce given in the recipe.

The sauce seriously ruled. It was composed mainly of nutritional yeast and Dijon mustard. In the past I was pretty hesitant to incorporate mustard in my cheese substitute mixes, but I am now converted.

Dave and I are convinced this sauce would be great poured over some veggie or boca burgers. I even bought some last night to test our theory.

The eggz benny was accompanied by some homemade hash browns. I might add, they came out a tad gooey. I don't know if I used to much oil or what. Suggestions?