Vegan breakfast/brunch

I have to start this off with a bad review, unfortunately -- I had been really excited to visit The Coupe, a few blocks from our house, since I'd looked at their menu and seen vegan pancakes and french toast. We went up there last weekend when some friends were in town, and within like weeks of me looking at it, the menu had changed -- the only vegan brunch option was a tofu dish. Super, super disappointing, since I prefer sweet to savory brunch, and they just didn't have anything that fit the category. But, to try and make up for it, I ordered buffalo seitan tacos, which were on the lunch menu. They were awful! I don't know if it was badly made seitan or terrible buffalo sauce, but something was extra salty in there and they were just inedible. I really hope no non-vegans try them, as I'd admittedly be put off from seitan and its capabilities by that one dish. Dan had the vegan tofu dish on the brunch menu, and it was OK, but really not worth returning for when Meridian Pint is down the street offering curried tofu scramble and vegan french toast. Sorry, The Coupe. You should have kept the vegan pancakes on the menu--it's SO EASY to veganize pancakes! I don't have a photo of my food, but maybe that's for the best...

OK, rant over--now, for some happy thoughts of vegan breakfast foods that everyone can make at home instead of going out to get terrible seitan tacos!

I have a sweet tooth, so I usually for stuff like this:

Sorry, was hard to show the filling in a good photo, but yum!

These are jelly filled muffins from this recipe. The batter was like cake batter, it turned out really moist and nice, and the jam-filled centers were great. We filled some of them with jam plus vegan cream cheese, which is totally indulgent but really good. Filling the batter seems hard, but even when I did a crappy job, they came out OK, so don't fret. Anyway, I definitely suggest making these if you like to indulge on a sweet breakfast during a weekend!

Vegans eating food

OK, time for another one of those stuff-we-eat posts, a glimpse into our tummies (OK, that would be gross, my photos look a little better than stomach contents usually...)

Are you ready for some photos?

Brown sugar carrots with rigatoni casserole

It's really hard to get a photo of baby carrots that don't look like fingers. I know baby carrots are all a conspiracy anyway, or something like that. I knew it when I was little, too:


Anyway, we adapted this recipe to make these and served them with rigatoni casserole. They were good, better than I remember them being when I was 3...

Apple pie!

This is from Vegan Pie in the Sky... yum! It was really good, but it lasted too long since we were the only ones to get to eat it...

Recreating perfection?

During the past few trips to Busboys and Poets, I've branched out from the usual selection of $9 dollar sandwiches and appetizers (seriously though, those appetizers are filling) and tried some entrees for a few extra bucks. That's kind of a lie, the first time I tried an entree was because Dan's mom ordered their orzo dish a few weeks ago, and she let me have a bite. But, with that bite, it instantly became my new favorite dish.

And, since I now have a job to go to instead of blogging every day (sorry!) I can afford to buy my own $14 entrees sometimes. So, last weekend when we went there with a friend, I ordered the pan-seared basil tofu. My new new favorite dish!

Sorry, trendy restaurants --> crappy photos, but yum!

This was pretty much perfect (if you like tofu, but even if you don't love it) and I ate it in like 5 minutes. It's really not enough food for a dinner, so if you're already spending the $14 on the entree, go ahead and get an appetizer or a side. I was lucky & had Dan's calzone (also amazing, but not quite as mind-blowing as this) to share.

I didn't really have conscious plans to try and cook something like this at home, but then Dan started talking about tofu and quinoa the other night... we pretty much made this same thing, but subbed the tomato cream sauce with chipotle remoulade.

Pan-seared tofu over quinoa and chipotle remoulade

It came out really well. We didn't have the same quality of herbs to really get the tofu right, but the pan-sear turned out pretty well (OK, not as beautiful as theirs, I'll just have to keep trying!) The broccolini, which Dan sauteed with some lemon juice, margarine, and salt & pepper, was a really nice touch. We added raisins and sun-dried tomatoes to the quinoa -- I could do without the tomatoes, actually, but quinoa went great with tofu and broccoli.

There's not really a secret recipe here, but we based the quinoa & chipotle remoulade off my mom's stuffed peppers dish here. Pan-searing the tofu (or is this pan-frying?) just meant rubbing the tofu with some herbs and cornstarch, heating up a pan with a thin coating of oil, and letting the tofu sit there for a few minutes on each side. This is the same way I cook up marinated tofu to put in soups and stuff (see blog header!) so it wasn't really anything new, but putting the meal together was pretty novel for us -- and delicious.

I'll try to blog some more this weekend, I have such a backlog of photos to put up! Enjoy November, everyone.