Monday, February 18, 2008

Breakfasts....

Breakfast has always been my favourite meal. Before going vegan, visiting my local diner for breakfast was a common activity—at any time of day or night. As a vegetarian, breakfast out was still easy, but eschewing all animal products makes restaurants a bit trickier, especially for morning meals. Visits to the diner meant a side of home fries with butter-free toast and loads of ketchup and hot sauce.

When cooking at home, the vegan breakfast possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Smoothies, pancakes, waffles, French toast, tofu scrambles, breakfast burritos, muffins, scones… But, since moving back to Australia, I seem to have fallen into a breakfast rut. I blame it on a few things. One is lack of kitchen equipment—no waffle iron means no waffles, no blender means no smoothies, and I’ve only very recently gotten a muffin pan. Another reason is a lack of ingredients. How can I make tempeh bacon when the only tempeh in the shops tastes like mush? The main reason, though, is Andy’s narrow thoughts on breakfast. For morning meals, he likes cereal, porridge, or stuff on toast (namely, spaghetti).

Every now and then I try, gently, to push him outside of his breakfast comfort zone with a tofu frittata or a breakfast burrito, but he thinks it tastes like a dinner, rather than a breakfast. Sometimes I make muffins or scones, but he doesn’t like pastry for breakfast. Mostly, though, we eat cereal, porridge, and spaghetti on toast—not the most photogenic of meals.

On the weekends, we sometimes make pancakes. I generally stick to recipes, sometimes playing around with different spice and topping combinations. Andy, on the other hand, lets his imagination run wild. These pancakes have pureed mango, shredded coconut, orange marmalade, nutmeg, and I don’t remember what else. They are coloured bright blue thanks a whole bottle of blue food dye we acquired from a friend who was clearing out a kitchen before moving interstate. I called them smurf pancakes—they are so blue they match the plate!

Oatmeal is a great breakfast, especially on the days when we bike to uni because it leaves us feeling full all morning. Plus, it’s easy to play around with different flavours to keep it from getting boring. Strawberry jam, cinnamon, and dried fruit are a good combo.

Our basic, fallback porridge is dried mixed fruit, soy milk, cinnamon, and brown sugar.

When we had all those mushrooms the other week, I decided I wanted to have a big cook-up brekky. I sautéed the mushies with soy sauce and maple syrup. I also made some home fries with onion, potato, shredded carrot, and diced tomato, all spiced with caraway and wattle seeds. And, to add some much needed sauciness to the plate, baked beans (aka a tin of cannellini beans mixed with a tin of tomato soup). The piece of toast was perfect for mopping up all the flavours that were left on the plate.

Walnut date bread—for those really good dates, this is the perfect thing to serve for breakfast the next morning. Just kidding. Sort of. Dates and walnuts and LSA and oats and whole meal flour. It’s a hearty, filling bread that made great toast.

It also made great Fronch Toast, the VwaV recipe. I thought this was great. It reminded me of all those late night trips to Denny’s and ordering Fabulous French Toast with lots of maple syrup… yum. Andy didn’t love it. I tell him he’s a breakfast grinch.


Who doesn't love to read some news with brekky? Here's a really good article about why we still need feminism--here's a spoiler: women are still oppressed!

12 comments:

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

i never liked breakfast food UNTIL i became vegan. i love tofu scrambles, pancakes and homefries! i also LOVE steel cut oats with vanilla soy milk, maple syrup, ground golden flax seed, brown sugar and cinnamon! grits are also essential.

Monika K said...

Breakfast at your place looks awesome - I love the baked beans (ie beans and tomato soup). (-: Spaghetti on toast is a new one...

Unknown said...

Breakfast for me is a routine in which I treasure the idea of the same things to start the day. Porridge is one of my favourites. You do have a very good point when you say it is a difficult meal for vegans in diners. Vegetarians have it much easier in this regard.

Anonymous said...

He quite obviously IS a breakfast grinch. I wouldn't turn down any of the food you mentioned!

I liked the article. Although we pretty much have equality as far as legislation goes, there's something terribly wrong when women around the world can't even decide when and if they want kids. There's this huge debate about it in Italy at the moment, they've had legalised abortions for 30 years but as a catholic country it still raises heated debates. And lots of people want abortions banned. It's easy as a privileged male i power to say what women can and cannot do with their bodies...

Anonymous said...

Breakfast is such a great meal! I look forward to it even before I go to bed. But I'm in a breakfast rut too, it's terrible... but I make up for it by making breakfast foods for lunch and dinner, hehe! I bet breakfast at your house would change my ways though... looks yummy!

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Those are without a doubt the coolest pancakes I have ever seen! Blue is my favorite color, and your pancakes look so fun!

Yay for delicious breakfasts-- I have no idea how some people can skip it; I'm always excited for breakfast when I wake up. Like you said, there are so many possibilities :o).

Ashasarala said...

Breakfast always gets me really excited except I end up eating it at lunch time. For some reason, my stomach does NOT want a single ounce of food in it for at least two hours after awakening. This is especially true on work day mornings.

As for Sunday brunch? Just about everything you mentioned makes my mouth water. And Andy IS a breakfast grinch. Cereal and porridge gets a little boring after a time. Unfortunately, it's the only thing I can stomach on those early week day mornings.

::off to read the article::

TB said...

I have to say that the main thing I miss ass a vegan is being able to go out to breakfast! Luckily there's a place near my house where one can get tofu scramble, but still, I miss the variety of being able to go wherver and order whatever. Luckily, I love to cook breakfast. All yours look fabulous, and gave me some great ideas. I'm especially into the baked beans breakfast. I love savory things for breakfast...so, beans, mmm...

Anonymous said...

ANDY'S NOT A GRINCH
I have it on good authority that he loves breakfast especially those that fill him up til unchtime. Don't let Theresa fool you she is actually a breakfast nazi!!

the little one said...

I would have to say that Andy sure does appear to be both a breakfast grinch and slightly a weirdo. He did, afterall, make smurf pancakes. Scary! I suspect, though, that he's just perfect for you and wonderful in lots of other ways!

Liz Ranger (Bubble Tea for Dinner) said...

okay, those blue pancakes are blowing my mind, I'm so serious! I dunno what it is about dayglo food, but I couldn't imagine anything better to wake up to. "ow, my eyes! food... so... bright! okay, I'm up!!" :DD

DJ said...

I have to agree, I love breakfast too, in it's various incarnations, but like your Andy, my other half shows a distinct lack of imagination when it comes to the most important meal of the day. No matter, I plough on regardless - it all looks delicious! And smurf pancakes, genius!