Your Vegan Mom

Toast Cups and Easy, Kid-Friendly Brunch Fare

I'm thinking about you.  Will you, perchance, be cooking up something to replace your mom's Cheese Baked Judy this Easter Sunday following the egg hunt?  Yes?  No?  Okay, I'm thinking about me.  And I'll need a super simple brunch-y main dish that I can easily make in not-my-own kitchen.  Bonus points if my kids will eat it.  

Super score.  This is it.  Tofu Scramble in Toast Cups.  The mundane meets the unexpectedly festive in one perfect brunch dish.  Happy Easter!  

I have to thank Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Cookbook from 1959 for the inspiration for this recipe.  Right there in the Easter spread on page 31 there is a recipe for toast cups (with eggs baked inside) that leaves me wanting to serve everything in a vessel of oven crisped bread - pot pie filling and creamy mushrooms and then I even start to think about all the creamed things that my mom hankers for on toast and I wonder about plopping vegan equivalents into these edible receptacles.  Creamed Tempeh in Toast Cup - I bet that's good.  

But for now, this scramble will meet your Sunday brunch needs.  It's easy and delicious, and actually, after it serves its festive, holiday needs, I could see this becoming a simple, savory breakfast on the go staple.  Did I mention that both boys (and their parents to boot) loved it?  Hallelujah.  

Toast Cups with Tofu Scramble and Spring Vegetables
Makes: 12 appetizer or 6 light main dish servings
Takes: 30 minutes (20 active)

• 12 slices soft whole wheat bread, crusts removed
• 4 tablespoons vegan butter, divided
• 1 spring onion with the tops, finely chopped (or 3 green onions)
• 2 smallish carrots, shredded
• 1 medium zucchini, shredded
• 1 19-ounce package medium-firm tofu (I mostly use the pink one from Trader Joe's for scrambling.)
• 1/4 cup tofu seasoning blend (recipe below)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried dill

To make the toast cups: Heat the oven to 325.  Lightly butter your bread squares and gently smoosh into the cups of a muffin tin.  (If your bread is too stiff - you'll know when it doesn't smoosh nicely - cover a stack of buttered slices and stick them in the microwave for 30 - 60 seconds or until soft, working in 2 or 3 batches) Bake for 20 minutes or until crisp and golden brown - they will crisp up more as they cool.

To make the scramble: In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.  Add the white parts of the onion and the carrot.  Cook for about 2 minutes, until soft and fragrant.  Stir in the zucchini.  Season with a pinch of salt and cook for another 2 minutes or until the vegetables are soft and beginning to brown.  Add the green parts of the onion and cook just until wilted and smelling delicious.  Crumble the tofu into the pan.  Add the seasoning mix and a bit of dill.  Smash the seasoning into the tofu and vegetables, cooking and stirring.  Season with salt and pepper if necessary.  If your tofu is very wet, let most of the liquid cook off.  Otherwise, you're done with this part.

To assemble: Place a dollop of scramble in each toast cup and serve.

Toast cups and scramble can both be made a day ahead.  Reheat the scramble and proceed.

Basic Tofu Seasoning Blend
Makes: about 2 cups
Takes: less than 5 minutes

• 2 cups nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric

Place all ingredients in a jar.  Shake.  Use as needed.   

Paul's Buttermilk Pancakes

 
February was a rough month.  For just about everybody I know.  You?

Somewhere towards the beginning, a car crashed into my dining room.  At 5:30 PM.  When we should have been sitting at the dining room table eating dinner.  But I was feeling grouchy (February was a rough month.) and decided to stop at Chipotle instead of cooking.  I got home with two sleepy boys ready for a bath and bed to find our front yard strewn with glass and splintered hunks of wood and the flashing red lights of fire trucks and small huddled groups of neighbors and a forest green honda accord compressing our baby strollers to the front door.  

Shockingly, no one was hurt.  The front windows are still boarded up.  And there's still some structural work to be done.  But we're back in our house.  It's fine.  Just dark.  

And to make matters worse, our best pals have abandoned us to live and work in New Orleans for the next six months.  

So today we will rally with pancakes.  

Traditionally, I understand, pancakes are eaten on this last day before Lent as one last hurrah - to use up your butter and sugar before the spartan living of this reflective period before Easter.   

I would like to flip all that around.  I'll take the pancakes, but to mark richness to come, not past.  Bring on the (vegan) butter and sugar and flowers and sunshine and seventy degree days (like Saturday).  More bike rides and barbecues.  And strawberries.  And margaritas.  Right now, please.   

There's no school today, and Paul's between movies, so we will celebrate as if Pancake Day were really the national holiday it obviously should be.  (Oh my, this is liberating, I am so declaring my own national holidays from here on out.  Just think of what this could mean...)

Paul's Buttermilk Pancakes
Serves 4.  Makes about 15 3 to 4 inch pancakes. 

• 1 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 cup white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups soy milk
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 tablespoons canola oil

In a glass measuring cup, stir together the milk and vinegar and set aside to thicken (that's how you make vegan buttermilk).  

Now, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.  

Go get your griddle ready.  It should be heated to medium-low. 

By now your buttermilk should be quite thick.  Add the sugar, vanilla, and oil to the cup.  Stir.  And pour the wet ingredients into the dry.

You should have a nice thick-ish batter with some lumps.  Don't over mix.

When your griddle is nice and hot, lather it lightly with vegan butter and pour your batter onto the hot surface.  About 1/4 cup of batter will give you a nice sized pancake.  When the edges are dry and some bubbles have formed and popped, it's ready to flip.

Repeat.  Serve hot with vegan butter and maple syrup.

Gauva Cheese Turnovers

If you come to my house for Valentine's Day, it is required (not optional) that you bring a valentine for all those present.  I love the elementary school version of the holiday that celebrates love for all your pals in a non-icky-long-stem-roses kind of way.  

In this vein, this is my valentine to you.  Each of you.  Inspired by a long ago lazy afternoon spent with good friends at that purple Cuban cafe on Sunset in Silver Lake.  

These turnovers should be accompanied by big steamy mugs of cafe con leche, and of course, people you really like.  

Guava Cheese Turnovers

• 1 17.3-ounce package puff pastry sheets (I use Pepperidge Farms.)
• about half a tin of Guava Paste, cut into thin (1/4 inch?) slices
• 2/3 cup raw cashews
• scant 2/3 cup plain soy yogurt or one 6-ounce container (I really like Wildwood.)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch salt

If your puff pastry is frozen, get it out of the freezer.  Open it up and let it thaw on the counter. 

Now let's make the cheese.  Grind the cashews in a food processor to a a pretty fine meal.  Add the yogurt, vanilla, and a pinch of salt.  Process again until smooth and creamy.  

Arrange a rack in the center of your oven, and preheat to 400 degrees.

When the pastry is pliable, unfold it on a floured counter or board, and cut each sheet into four smaller squares.  

Place a generous tablespoon of cheese onto the middle of each square.

Arrange a slice or two of guava paste on top of each dollop of cheese.

Fold over to make a triangle.  Seal edges with the tines of a fork.  With a sharp paring knife, cut a few little slits in the top of the pastry to allow steam to escape.  

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown.  

 Happy Valentine's Day, Love. 

Grandma Marilyn's Swedish Pancakes

My grandmother was a saint - it has recently become clear.  As a kid, I had a sleepover at her house almost every weekend.  She would let me sit in her big orange velveteen recliner.  And we'd stay up past my bedtime watching Golden Girls and Empty Nest.  In the morning I would sit at the big orange (Again.  She redecorated in the seventies.  Incidentally, orange is my favorite color.  I never thought about this likely source.) naugahyde breakfast booth nestled into her linoleum covered kitchen and eat pancakes.  She would stand at the hot griddle and flip me tiny crepe-like Swedish pancake after pancake.

It was our thing.  We would count.  An average weekend morning might involve 32 pancakes (For me.  She ate too, but I think it's not as much fun to count how many pancakes a grown woman can eat).  While this might sound excessive, if not the sign of a serious problem - especially for the belly of an 8-year-old - I need to tell you that these pancakes were lacy-delicate, small in circumference, and just uncontrollably delicious.  The small diameter was crucial.  Before hitting on this perfect size, she had experimented with different shapes - bunnies and mickey mouse heads and various athletic equipment.  But once the baseballs made their way to my plate, all cuteness had to stop.  It turns out that the swedish baseball (as it became known in our family) or the two to three inch diameter super thin pancake is the golden mean of pancakes.  The ratio of crisp edge to custardy interior makes this version simply the perfect pancake.

And the pancake that I have been trying to replicate off and on for the past 16 years.  And the pancake that I just happened to stumble upon with some leftover Belgian waffle batter from tofu mom's excellent recipe.  When I thinned it out with more milk and melted butter and poured tiny pools out onto a hot griddle, there it was.  The taste of my favorite mornings.

And so after a few more tweaks and trials, I excitedly settled my own children down at the counter in our kitchen to wait for hot swedish baseballs.

Desmond began, "Why did I not get my monkey plate?"  

And continued, "The syrup is supposed to go in the ear."  (The monkey's ears also serve as sauce compartments.  So that explanation is not as bad as it sounds.)

Undaunted I replied, "I know, Buddy.  I'll get you a syrup cup."

"A big one? (Pause for recognition of an unsatisfactory syrup cup.) No not that one!"

Ready to flip.

And then after the syrup dipping was sorted, and I managed to turn a few pancakes over before they burned, and then just as I was about to flip hot pancakes onto their waiting plates, the desperate impatience for pancakes hit -

"Give (sigh).  Me (sigh)..." I didn't let him finish this emphatic demand for pancakes before I turned off the stove and shared my feelings about use of manners... while we scarfed down the first few hot pancakes.

Also,

"Ennnnhhhh!" echoed Felix meaning the same as the above.

I turned the stove back on and poured out some more batter.

"I have a joke for you.  (Thinks about it some more.)  It's not very funny.  But I'll tell it to you anyway."

(Jokes are delivered in sing-song.)  "I have pancakes in my nose!" 

(He didn't.  It was just a joke.)

Flipping pancakes and glancing at the baby, I instruct:

"Felix!  Syrup is for dipping!  Do not drink the syrup!"

More flipping, more impatient demands for more pancakes, more reminders of how to ask nicely, and how really it's not necessary to ask at all because the pancakes will just come.  More pancakes, and then:

"Ahhh!  Felix is putting syrup on his head!  Is that okay?  Or put it down on the pancakes?"

(Felix has a penchant for turning things into hats.  Even small metal containers of maple syrup.)

Baby is wiped down.  More pancakes are cooked and consumed.  Then:

"I want to go play outside!"

"Okay!" (I think I maybe hid the exact level of my extreme enthusiasm for this plan.)

More flipping, before I holler to Desmond out back:

"What's your brother doing?"

"He's cleaning!"

"What's he cleaning?"

"The dirt."

"The dirt?"

"He's cleaning the dirt off the dirt."

More flipping.  And then eventually more washing the baby.

And then Desmond runs in from the backyard, 

"Did you save this little piece of pancake for me?"

"Absolutely."  (Not looking up from my flipping, I have no idea what he's talking about.)

"And this little bit of syrup?"

"Absolutely."

He runs out the backdoor.

Pauses on last step to add, 

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome, Buddy."

And then I turn off the stove, pour myself a second cup of coffee, sit down with the last round of pancakes, and appreciate my grandmother.

Here's my recipe for her pancakes.  It is way more than inspired by tofu mom's waffles. 

Swedish Pancakes
makes a kajillion pancakes, or serves two to four 

• 2 cups flour (I generally use half white whole wheat flour and half all-purpose.)
• 4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 1/2 cups milk, divided (I generally use half soy milk and half almond milk, but any rich non-dairy milk will do.)
• 2 tablespoons flax meal
• 6 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• cooking spray, more butter, or canola oil for greasing the griddle

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a blender, whir 1/2 cup of the milk with the flax meal.  Let sit while you measure the remaining ingredients, melt your butter, and heat your griddle over medium low.  Grease it too.  

Whir the flax meal and milk one more time and then add the rest of the milk, the melted butter and the vanilla.  Blend it again until it's good and frothy.

Pour about a cup of the wet stuff into the dry and whisk together.  Stir in the rest.  

Spoon a tablespoon of batter out onto the hot, greased griddle.  When it looks dryish and maybe some brown edges are beginning to peek through, gently scooch a spatula underneath and flip over.  Cook until browned on the other side.     

Serve immediately with maple syrup. 

 

Breakfast Panini

 

During one of the 7 AM games of the World Cup we invited ourselves over to our best pals' house to watch the game. (They're those kind of friends.  I'm so lucky that I know people who will put up with me inviting myself over at 7 in the morning, with my children.)  With the chaos of all the babies running around (They have one too.  I didn't bring all the chaos with me.) and the grown-ups not having consumed anywhere near enough coffee, I don't even remember who was playing or what happened in the game, but I do remember what we ate.  

We ate breakfast panini.  To sweeten our presence, these pals needed a good breakfast.  A good breakfast that was not just tasty, moderately healthy, and belly-filling, but also portable.  The sort of breakfast that you can hold in one hand, with a cup of coffee in the other and a foot free to nudge a baby away from a power cord or an overstimulated cat.  This hot, gently oozy sandwich completely fit the bill.  

I threw thinly sliced tofu in a simple marinade the night before and then fried it up in melted butter the next morning while I waited for everyone else to wake up.  Wrapped in foil, the assembled panini were much appreciated by all the bleary-eyed soccer fans.  

They were so good in fact that I went home and made more to stick in the freezer to reheat for second breakfast on an as-needed basis.  Two days later they were gone, and I have made them since on a somewhat weekly basis, much to the happiness of the entire family.  This is a good, good sandwich.

Breakfast Panini
You know how you're supposed to read through the entire recipe before you start making it?  You should totally do that here.  There's a couple weird things I'll tell you about right now though, just in case you absolutely refuse to follow directions. 1) Don't skimp on the butter, even though it might look like a lot - you're going to use what's left in the pan to become a thick, kind of cheesy, gravy.  This gravy is crucial to the deliciousness and sticking-together-ness of the sandwich.  2) Don't chuck the marinade - that's going to go into the gravy too.  3) Have your rolls ready to receive hot, drippy tofu - you don't want to waste any of the good stuff - let that flavor soak into your bread.

makes 6 sandwiches

• 1 block extra firm tofu, cut into 12 1/4 inch slices
• 3 ounces spinach
• 1/2 small red onion
• 6 panini rolls
• 4 tablespoons non-dairy butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• tofu marinade:
• • 1/4 cup bragg's or soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar
  • tiny pinch of turmeric
  • tiny pinch of paprika
  • ground pepper

Mix together marinade and soak tofu in it over night.  On the day, heat a large cast iron skillet over medium-low and melt butter in the pan.  Reserving the marinade, add the tofu slices to the hot pan and cook until golden brown on both sides.  

While the tofu cooks, measure your flour and have it ready to add to the pan when the tofu is done.  In a glass measuring cup, have your milk ready too and add 1/2 cup of the reserved marinade to the milk.

Now's also a good time to wash and drain your spinach and slice your onion as thinly as possible.  Cut the rolls in half too so that they're ready to receive cooked tofu.  

When your tofu is just about ready, heat the panini grill.  Remove the tofu from the cast iron skillet, placing two slices of tofu on the bottom half of each roll.  

Now add the flour to the melted butter left in the skillet.  Stir and cook for about a minute, until the flour is peanut-y golden brown.  Stir in the milk and marinade combo and simmer, stirring continuously, until you have a very thick gravy, about 1 minute.  (It will thicken considerably as it cools, but you want it spreadable so it doesn't immediately ooze off your sandwich.)  

Layer several slices of onion and a small handful of spinach on top of the tofu.  Spread the other half of the rolls with your thick gravy.  Put the halves together and grill in a panini press, in the George Forman grill that you got for your wedding, or in a pan with another pan weighted down on top.   

Serve hot, or wrap in napkins to take on a breakfast picnic, or freeze to eat all week.