Brunch for dinner

Breakfast and brunch are a meal and a half that vegans don't have easy. I organize events at work and planning breakfast for the vegan guest is the most challenging. Let's just ponder a moment and think about all the dishes that vegan unfriendly in the usual state. First off--duh!--there's eggs. And omelettes, also known as "eggs with stuff inside it." Sausage and bacon are not only corpse bits, they are also drenched in pending-coronary sauce (saturated fat). Cereal can be difficult depending on the availability of non-diary milk. French toast, pancakes and waffles should be safe--don't waffles even look innocent? I would never suspect them!--but those sneaky little bastards hold more than just sryup in their nooks and crannies. Muffins just emanate home-baked goodness, but don't fall for it--that's their ploy. And let's not get started on butter.

And then along came Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who finds the empty holes in my meal planner and fills them with vegan cookbooks. I had previously pondered--brief, fleeting thoughts with no basis in reality, like wondering what it would be like to walk on the moon--about eating French toast again, or breaking out my waffle maker and making Saturday morning into the spectacular start to the weekend that it always should be. But alas, it did not happen. (As much as I love the Interweb, googling recipes does not always yield delicious results.)

Unlike Google's "I feel lucky!" button, Vegan Brunch never disappoints. Purchasing this book re-ignited my love affair with brunch, which was doused when I went vegan and came to terms with the fact that my old Saturday morning standby (fried eggs and toast) and I were going to "have a break." (It's not you, eggs, it's me--no wait, it's you. Yuck.)

But it is Fronch Toast that has taken hold of my heart (from Vegan With a Vengeance, not Vegan Brunch. I know, the old bait and switch!). I make it all the time. I buy whole grain baguette at my grocery store and try not to use it all for brunch (it's great with hummus, too). Today, I slept in, lazed around (a boy is making me sad today), got groceries, dashed off to bike downtown (in the rain) to my yoga workshop, and when I came home I happily realized I finally had time for Fronch Toast. I don't know how bread soaked in a mixture of chickpea flour and soymilk can turn into golden, crispy fried goodness, but it does. Let's call it a Vegan Miracle. (Every time you eat Fronch Toast, an angel gets its wings!)

One last Very Important Comment: use real maple syrup. Anything else is an afront to maple trees everywhere.

Vegan Holy Grail

The vegan Holy Grail is the quest for good cheese-like foods. Everything else is readily available: soy/almond/rice milk, soy yogurt, chick'n patties, bean/soy sausage, even marshmallows... If there's an animal-product product that you're craving a vegan version of, chances are you can find it. Many are at the grocery store, some are at your health food store, and rarely you need to go to a specialty store or order online.

But vegan cheese is something else.

I have bought vegan cheese. The only time I have liked it was when I used the vegan cheese-slice type for grilled cheeze sandwiches. Yes, it's good. But you can't really taste the middle part of grilled cheeze, or even grilled cheese, for that matter--it mostly serves as a gooey texture contrast sandwiched (see what I did there? boo-yeah!) between two slices of fried bread. So it served its purpose in the grilled cheeze--gooey middle layer, check!

Other vegan cheese has proven more challenging. I am told that there are definitely yummy, melty, satisfying pizza-topping cheezes out there. The two I bought were both supposed to melt but didn't, had a slightly rubbery texture, and took away from the food more than added to it. I have pretty much given up my search and accepted lovingly-made pizza topped with olive oil, herbs and assorted veggie items. It's still delicious, it just doesn't have that gooey, melty texture I sometimes have a hankering for.

I can, however, get my cheeze fix taken care of in other ways. For example, vegan mac'n'cheese. Nutritional yeast provides the cheesy flavour, and as a carb-a-riffic pasta dish it was truly satisfying. It's now a favourite!

VeganMofo Day 2--A MoFo'n survey

Yes, already it has come to this: I am posting my completed VeganMoFo survey. I got home after 9:30 and had no creativity left to write. I am a bad MoFo! (Punny. You love it.)

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?
Soy.

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
Seitan--I've only made it once and it was still second-best
Fronch toast--it is fucking amazing. Nuff said.
Cupcakes. Love 'em.

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
Nooch. Haven't tried it yet, but it's first on my list!

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
The time I was making multi-step, multi-ingredient veggie loaf with curried mushroom topping, and I knocked everything off the counter. Sad face.

5. Favorite pickled item?
Pickles. (I'm a simple girl.)

6. How do you organize your recipes?
I don't.

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
Trash. Worms are on my shopping list. Why must I order them online? Why can't I buy worms locally?!?

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods...what would they be (don't worry about how you'll cook them)?
Fronch Toast.
Pasta with garlic, mushrooms and toasted bread crumbs. (You meant dishes, right, not foods? Yeah, let's go with that.)
Coffee.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
Mom making muffins. She didn't really cook, because did most of it, but she made muffins a lot.
And Dad's soup. Making soup was elevated to an art form, a two-day process imbued with everything good. (And some carcass, but I skip that step now.)

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
Soy Delicious Coconut Milk Bars with Almonds. I said it at a vegan meetup last people: those things are good people it will could people wish they were vegan.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
stick blender

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
cayenne pepper

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
Vegan cookbook? Veganomicon.
Any cookbook? The cookbook that I first bought myself was one called Pasta Menus that I bought at a cheap/used place downtown. I used it to cook for a date--the date went well, the food was good. (I kept the cookbook, but not the boy.)

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
Raspberry.

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
Chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon. I made it for bookclub at Christmas last year and two people asked for the recipe.

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
Tofu. I heart it.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
All the time.

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
The mini-cupcake pan I bought at a garage sale, and the pan I use for Fronch Toast. They need to handy at all times.

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
Edamame. Frozen ready-made chickpea side dish, for food emergencies (bad things happen when I am really hungry). ...And I can only remember 2.

20. What's on your grocery list?
Nothing yet--I haven't looked through my pile of disorganized cookbooks and magazines.

21. Favorite grocery store?
The Real Canadian Superstore. There's only three in all of Toronto, but one of them is a twenty-minute walk away from me. It has a kick-ass health food section (apparently it's called the "Natural Values" section) and a very cute Natural Values manager that I enjoy pathetically flirting with over soygurt. Don't judge.

22. Name a recipe you'd love to veganize, but haven't yet.
Beef stroganoff. There's probably one out there, but I haven't searched yet.

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa's because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
VeganDad.

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
Cocoa Camino Chocolate Mint.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
Raspberry syrup (the kind for coffee) for $15.99. It was purchased solely for cupcakes. I should probably try it with coffee too.

26. Ingredients you are scared to work with?
Nothing, yet. Give me a month!

Vegan Mofo

Yay! VeganMoFo is finally here. For the uninitiated, that's a month in which blogs (and now Tweets too) dedicated themselves to posting about vegan food. (More info and to sign up here.)

My first VeganMoFo post will be about cupcakes. Ah, cupcakes, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Cupcakes are single-serving size, versatile, and abounding with cuteness. I bring cupcakes to bookclub, to work, and to the gym (yes, the gym) and they make people sooo happy. A colleague today was almost giddy with delight when I offered her a cupcake; my bookclub friends were a little overwhelmed when I provided two kinds of cupcakes (chocolate mint and chocolate orange); and my trainer gobbles up my cupcakes so fast that one of his other clients asked where I got the recipe.

Being vegan, one has two choices: eat whatever ready-made vegan food you can find; or cook. I live in the biggest city in Canada, and I list on two hands the vegan food choices within walking distance of my workplace. Living outside the core of the city means the options near my home are far, far fewer. And when it comes to dessert, vegan treats are as scarce as rednecks doing downward dog. There are exactly two vegan dessert choices near work. So, I cook. And I make cupcakes.

I wasn't really a baker before I went vegan: I didn't really have a sweet tooth. However, going vegan happened to coincide with my year-long weight-loss journey--during which I realized that the salty, crunchy snacks I so loved completely decimate my willpower. If I buy a bag of chips, it disappears before you can say "just one portion." So I tried to eat them less. And then after going vegan and realizing how scarce vegan desserts were, I began to crave them. Human nature is a funny thing: we always want what we can't have!

So I bought Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, by vegan cookbook author extraordinaire and founder of VeganMoFo, Isa Chandra Moskowitz. It's fantastic. I've made a dozen cupcakes almost every week since I bought it. Since I really shouldn't eat 12 cupcakes before they turn into little iced hockey pucks (ooooooh! cupcake pun--you love it), I save 4 or 5 for myself and give the rest away.

This week I skimmed the cookbook, searching for I recipe that I hadn't made before but for which I had the ingredients. It was a success: I discovered peanut butter cupcakes. My co-workers and my spin instructor were happy to help me eat the dozen!