VeganMoFo 30: Lemon Herb Tofu

This is one of my favourite tofu recipes: the Lemon Herb Tofu from Dreena Burton’s Vive le Vegan! It’s really easy to throw together and doesn’t even require any marinating time. And most importantly, the tofu slices are delicious and packed with flavour. I like the pieces as is, but I love them even more when they’re mashed with vegan mayonnaise and spread on a piece of toast. Mmm…

Also: today’s the last day of VeganMoFo! I feel like it’s gone by so quickly, especially since I didn’t find a lot of time to write posts this week. I actually still have a bunch of things on my list that I haven’t posted yet! There are also many MoFo posts by other food bloggers that I haven’t even looked at yet, but I’m looking forward to reading all of them later!

This won’t be my last VeganMoFo post, by the way – I hope to make another one later today.

VeganMoFo 18: Brunch on Sunday III

Today is sunday, and that means it’s vegan brunch time! I love cooking during a weekend morning so much. I got to try out a couple of new recipes from the cookbook Vegan Brunch today, and they were great!

Because brunch is apparently not complete without some form of potatoes, I made a batch of roasted potatoes with various dried herbs. Yummy as always! We had them with this:

Tofu scramble! It’s the basic scramble recipe from Vegan Brunch with onions, broccoli, carrots and kalamata olives.

These are the Coffee Chip Muffins. I didn’t have the instant coffee powder, so I made a small amount of strong coffee and used that to replace part of the almond milk in the recipe. I also used chopped chocolate instead of chocolate chips, but other than that, I stuck to the recipe. These were pretty good! Not as amazingly delicious as the Berry Muffins I made last week, but still, they’re really good.

When I had started making the batter for the muffins, I realised that I only had a little jar of baking powder left, and it was already a couple of months past its expiration date. I didn’t really want to use it and possibly ruining a perfectly good batch of muffins, so I went online and found a way to test whether your baking powder still works properly. If you mix it together with some hot water and it starts bubbling like crazy, then you have nothing to worry about! Everyone probably already knew this, but I didn’t, and I think it’s quite a useful little trick to know about. It’s fun to do, too. Anyway, my baking powder still created loads of bubbles so I continued to make my muffins and these waffles:

Mmm, waffles. These are the Old Fashioned Chelsea Waffles from VB and they are so good! My grandma gave me her old waffle iron, so I could finally make some big Belgian waffles instead of just the tiny heart-shaped ones (which are also cute!), and I tried it out this morning. I think she’s had this appliance for quite a while, but it still produces fine waffles. I’m not sure if it’s because of the new waffle iron or the excellent recipe from Vegan Brunch, but these waffles came out so delicious and perfectly crispy. And not once did I open the waffle iron to find my beautiful waffle torn apart and sticking to both of the metal plates, which always happens to me! My grandma’s iron is actually easier to clean, too, because you can take the plates out so you can actually scrub them properly.

Here’s a picture of the waffles topped with slices of Baked Cinnamon Apples:

It’s a real shame that the apples didn’t turn out as photogenic as I had hoped, because they were so good! I could have known you can’t really go wrong with apples and cinnamon, but still. This is one fabulous topping! I’d like to add it to my oatmeal, too…

So… brunch is awesome. I was especially happy with the way my waffles came out and I can’t wait to try more recipes using my new waffle iron!

Have a nice evening!

VeganMoFo 4: Brunch on Sunday I

I’ve decided that I’m going to make brunch every Sunday for VeganMoFo (and possibly after that), as Sundays are always pleasantly lazy days that are perfect for a morning of cooking followed by a nice meal with family. I woke up a little late today, so I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to cook enough for a proper brunch. Everything went more smoothly than I had expected, though, so I ended up with plenty of delicious brunch food!

Most of these recipes are from my newest cookbook, Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I never used to make brunch all that often, so I feared I might not use the book very often. I was wrong. This is turning into my new favourite cookbook! I guess I just didn’t realise how versatile brunch really is. There are so many different recipes in the book, there’s something you can use for every type of meal. I’ve also started having more elaborate brunches since I got it, so it’s definitely not sitting on by cookbook shelf unused!

Now, on to the pictures.

We started our meal with these waffles. They’re the Chocolate Beer Waffles from Vegan Brunch and they are so decadent and delicious. I wanted to make the chocolate drizzle Isa suggests in the description of the recipe, but I didn’t have enough non-dairy milk so I ended up mixing some melted chocolate with a little maple syrup and fruit juice for an extra rich chocolate sauce. We had some raspberries that were about to go bad and they went great with these waffles!

After that, I made tofu scramble! I had a little bit of tofu left in the fridge and it needed to be used, so I made a small batch of the Basic Tofu Scramble from Vegan Brunch. I downsized the recipe and didn’t really measure the spices, so the quantities probably aren’t exactly right, but it was quite tasty. I added a sliced onion and two tomatoes. Mmm. I really love that this scramble has such a soft texture, probably because of the water added to the spice mix. I think the softness makes the dish seem a little more similar to scrambled eggs and since my tofu scramble often tends to burn a little, I really like this technique.

To go with the scramble, I roasted a few potatoes using the VB recipe. I had made one of the variations before (paprika rosemary), but this basic version was great as well! I never knew how well potatoes go with tofu scramble, but now I try to have them together every time.

Next up, tofu bacon. I know, two types of tofu in one meal seems silly, but I really wanted to try the bacon and I had to use up the other piece of tofu somehow, too.

This is the “tempeh bacon revamped” recipe from VB, with smoked tofu instead of tempeh. As I mentioned before, I don’t have any liquid smoke, so I wanted to try and see whether smoked tofu would be a good replacement. Apart from the fact that I may have cooked them a little too long, these were tasty! The recipe takes very little work (you just throw the marinade together and let it sit for an hour), so I’m probably going to make it more often!

Even though we had more than enough food for one meal already, I also fried up some  fronch toast. I had made a couple pieces of the Fronch Toast from Vegan with a Vengeance on Friday, and I had saved the rest of the mixture in the fridge, so it was ready to use! The leftover batter was enough to coat a couple of slices of stale ciabatta, and served with fresh blueberries and maple syrup, these slices made a lovely addition to the brunch!

I hope I can keep this “brunch on Sunday” thing up for the entire month, because this sure was delicious.

VeganMoFo 1: Student’s Go Vegan Cookbook

For my first VeganMoFo post, I thought it would be appropriate to go back to the first cookbook I bought: Student’s Go Vegan Cookbook by Carole Raymond. I bought this book when I had just gone vegan because I was looking for simple recipes and a basic introduction to vegan food, and this book offers both of those things. There’s a little piece in the beginning on vegan nutrition and eating in general, and there are tips for vegan students in particular all throughout the book.

Even though the SGV cookbook was pretty much what I was looking for when I first went vegan, I quickly started buying many other cookbooks, too. After that,  I never used this one as much. I did make the Ten-Minute Brownies and the Rustic Olive rolls and enjoyed both of those, but I don’t remember much about the other recipes. In any case, I thought it was about time to try out a few more!

I tried four of the recipes yesterday. First up:

The Tofu Scramble Burrito-Style. I didn’t know what to expect of this recipe, as it looks very different from other scrambles I’ve made (no turmeric, no nutritional yeast!). However, the two spices (cumin and chili powder) apparently provide enough flavour on their own, because I liked it! I can’t say this is my favourite tofu scramble recipe (so far, I think it’s a tie between the one from Yellow Rose Recipes and the one from Vegan Brunch), but I really like the idea of putting the scramble in a tortilla, so I’m going to do that more often.

I didn’t follow the recipe for the scramble exactly, by the way; I added some kale and corn, since I had those around and I thought they would make tasty additions. I really wanted to top the burrito with avocado, but sadly, the supermarket in my village appears to have stopped carrying those. I chose to have a chopped tomato with some parsley instead.

Secondly, I made the Vegetable Pancakes with Sesame Sauce as a snack. You can see them in the above picture, cut into wedges and sprinkled with extra scallions. I thought the pancakes turned out well (although I probably I should have cooked them a little longer), but I wasn’t big on the dipping sauce. It’s just a personal preference, I guess. Maybe I’m just not very fond of soy sauce in things where you can really taste it? Or maybe it was just the combination. In any case, I’d probably pair the pancakes with something else if I made them again.

But yeah, the pancakes themselves were good! They were very filling, though. I had a couple of wedges and shared the rest with my parents, so if you’re not very hungry the recipe definitely serves at least two.

What I love most about these pancakes is that they uses very basic ingredients to create something unusual – apart from maybe the mushrooms and scallions, you probably have everything in your pantry.

Now, this is what I’m going to take with me for lunch:

Tofu-Basil Sandwiches! I didn’t have ketchup, unfortunately, so I just used more mayonnaise. This sandwich filling comes together very quickly and tastes pretty good. I’ve only had one bite so far, so I can’t say much about it yet. I do think I probably would like this even better if the tofu had been marinated first – I made sandwich fillings with baked tofu and mayonnaise before and they are always a lot more flavourful. I still like the filling this way, too, though. You can really taste the fresh herbs and the tofu mixture reminds me a bit of cottage cheese.

I’m not sure why the recipe is called “tofu-basil” sandwiches, because actually more parsley in there, but that’s not really the point. The point is that I have two tasty sandwiches to take with me on the train!

Lastly, this is what I’m having for breakfast right now: the Cinnamon-Maple Granola. You can’t see it in the picture, but underneath the granola are a few tablespoons of soy yogurt, some apple slices, and an extra dash of cinnamon and maple syrup. It’s delicious! I never realised how much fun it is to make granola. I think I’m definitely going to do this more often, with different variations… Yum!

It was incredibly easy, as well! My parents love it, too. I think my Dad said he might try it later today instead of the usual honey-covered cereal.

Well, I’m going to finish my granola and get ready to leave for my language acquisition tutorial today. I’m looking forward to reading all the other MoFo posts soon – even though that’s probably impossible? I read there are over 300 people participating!