Pumpkin Pie Pancakes

Pumpkin pancakes can often be too sticky and not cook through throughly. These pancakes are thick, but fluffy, and perfect for rainy mornings.

Pumpkin Pancakes:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup graham cracker flour (3 rectangle crackers)2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup soy milk
1 tablespoon oil

Sift the dry ingredients: flour, graham flour, baking powder, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and brown sugar.
Then add the soymilk and pumpkin puree.
Mix well. Add nuts, if desired, and stir well.
Cook over a medium, oiled skillet until the edges are start to dry and bubbles have formed in the middle of the pancake.
Flip and cook about 2-3 minutes or until cooked through. Add oil to the skillet before each pancake.
Serve with your favorite vegan butter and maple syrup.

Pumpkin Waffles

This is just a simple praise for Pumpkin Waffles!
These were from Vegan with a Vengeance.
Quick praise to my waffle maker who decided to make waffles that didn't fall apart on me!
YUM!

How It All Vegan Breakfasts

Last weekend I ended up using two recipes from a cookbook, and from a cookbook I don't use often - How It All Vegan.

I have my own crepe recipe but I decided to branch out and try something new with one of my new toys - a crepe maker!

Strawberries and Cream Crepes:
1 crepe recipe, cooked into crepes
Fill the crepes with cashew cream
Spread with strawberries and sprinkle with powdered sugar


Breakfast Couscous Porridge:
This recipe was simple with a 1:2 ratio of grain to water. Blueberries and pecans were added to the mix. Next time I would make it a 1:4 ratio to make it creamier.
This wasn't as porridgey as I wanted it to be but it was alright.

Tofu Scramble

Last weekend I attended the Post Punk Kitchen Vegan: The Gathering and cooked a large amount of tofu scramble Sunday morning. People were really happy with the dish and hearing Julie tell me it was "the best tofu scramble" she'd ever had, was a compliment to many any heart smile.

Sun dried tomato Tofu scramble with Basil

I don't really have a recipe but it usually goes like this:
Saute onions, add garlic, mix. Add tofu, a bit of soy sauce and any dried spices and cook until the tofu starts to brown.
Add veggies related to their firmness (carrots, to green beans, spinach and tomatoes) and add fresh spices last.

Scrambled Tofu

Scrambled tofu is such an easy dish: crumble some tofu and pan fry, add some spices and veggies and serve warm. I love to shred my tofu before cooking it. The small texture of it is a perfect crumble for me. This one I added shredded onions, garlic, carrots, purple cabbage, kale, tummeric and other random spices.

I was kind of bored with it though so I decided to use up the rest of my phyllo. I put the phyllo in muffin tins and filled them with tofu scramble and put them in the oven. This would be a great way to serve a breakfast food at a buffet brunch.

More Broil Tofu Scramble

One of our favorite breakfast places here in Portland, Beaterville, has this wonderfully textured tofu. So I was inspired by both the delicious scramble tofu I had the previous weekend and the Beaterville tofu so I tried the following.

Broiled Tofu Scramble:
1 block of tofu
2 Tbl. Braggs
Light oil

1. Turn the broiler onto high.
2. Cut tofu into cubes and scatter on cookie sheet. Spray with oil and broil for 10 minutes.
3. Toss the tofu and spoon over some Braggs.
4. Stick it back in the oven and continue to broil, repeating the above process until your tofu reaches the desired consistency. You might want it drier than you think because if you'll be adding any vegetables to it, it will absorb some.

1/2 onion
3 cloves garlic
1/2 bag baby spinach
1 Tbl. roughly chopped sun dried tomatoes

1. Saute the onion and garlic in some oil.
2. Add the sun dried tomatoes and tofu and cook until it all reaches the same temperature.
(Your tofu will change texture the longer you cook it because it will gain moisture.)
3. Add spinach, cover and cook until wilted, making sure to stir and add spices to your taste.

I love the strong flavors of the tomatoes and don't feel this dish needs much extra spice.
Serve with home fries, juice and toast of your choice.
Enjoy!

Breakfasts!

Multi-grain Muffins:
Okay, these aren't really multi-grain and it doesn't really have a recipe.


Here's the process:
Blend in a blender about 3/4 oatmeal with 1 tablespoon flax seed, 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar and about 1/4 cup nuts - I used cashews. Add cinnamon, nutmeg and your other favorite spices. Set aside.
Bend 1 apple, 1 cup apple juice, 1 tablespoon molass, 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Mix the wet and the dry together. Add 1/3 cup dried blueberries and put into muffin tins. Put a dollop of blueberry jam on top and bake for 35 min at 350F.

These are very chewy and more like health bars than muffins.



Tofu Scramble:
It can be hard finding a good tofu scramble when eating out. Usually they make it too wet or bland, or both! I like mine a little crispy/chewy so I tried broiling it.

1 block tofu
1/2 medium onion
3 coves of garlic
2 tablespoons chopped sun dried tomatoes
4-5 large capers cut into quarters
3 tablespoons pinenuts
Large handful of spinach
Some Braggs

Turn broiler onto high.
Squeeze out as much water from the tofu as possible. Crumble tofu and place on baking sheet. Put that in the broiler/oven.
Saute the onion with some oil until translucent.
Check tofu, mix the tofu and pour some Braggs or other liquid seasoning over it and put it back in the broiler.
Add the chopped garlic to the sauted onions and satue for about 3 minutes. Add the sun dried tomatoes and pinenuts. Saute another 2 minutes.
Turn the broiler off and move the tofu into the frying pan. Continue to let the mixture cook together.
Add capers and other spices at this time.
place a big handful of spinach on top, cover and let steam for 1 minute. Uncover, stir and let cook another minute or so until the spinach is your favorite consistancy.
Serve warm.

A side of blueberry toast goes nicely with the strong flavors of the capers and tomatoes. Next time I make this I'll either add the capers or the tomatoes because they both have such strong unique flavors they kind of fight with each other when pared up.

Tofu Florentine

This is a test recipe for the next Post Punk Kitchen. I normally don't like posting these test recipes because 1. they aren't my creations, and 2. I can't share the recipe with you.
BUT, this tofu Florentine is great. My husband and I go to Vita Cafe often just so he can get his filling of this dish. Isa has hit it spot on and he was so excited about this that he wanted me to share it.

It's an English muffin stacked high with with slices of tofurky, steamed spinach, tofu and smothered in a creamy sauce.

Sweet Scramble

This was made for the livejournal Vegan_cookoff.

I'm a big fan of sweet things for breakfast, but I wanted to play along in the vegan_cookoff community, so this is what I came up with. It's a lot like oatmeal, but has a different texture. Next time I will add more apples and roast them.


Sweet Scramble
1/2 block firm tofu
1/4 cup agave
1/4 cup chopped apples
1/4 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1/3 cup blue berries
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
large dashes of: clove, nutmeg and ginger

1. Shred tofu and start to saute with some olive oil an 1/4 cup agave
2. Add chopped apples and spices, saute more.
3. Add apple sauce and saute until sticky. Add sliced almonds.
4. Place blueberries on top of scramble and let cook for about two minutes.
5. Mix together and serve with sprinkled almonds.

Blueberry Madness

Jess and I went blueberry picking this last weekend and I have about 7 pounds of blueberries to go through! This is very exciting.

First up on the cooking adventures with blueberries was breakfast!


Coconut Blueberry Pancakes
Basic recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.

1 1/3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp. Coconut extract
1 cup frozen blueberries

Mix as normal and cook as normal.

Coconut sauce:
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 handful coconut shreds
pinch of a thickener like gaur gum or some corn starch

1. Heat everything in a sauce pan on medium heat until reduced a little.
2. Pour over pancakes when ready to serve.

Cherry Scones

I've never really been a scone girl, more of a muffin person. This morning I tried something new and went with the scones from Vegan with a Vengeance, with my own changes and additions because I can never follow recipes.

Recipe:
3 Cups Flour
2 Tbl. Baking Powder
1/4 Cup Sugar
1/3 Apple Sauce
1 1/4 cup rice milk with 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 cup or so of chopped frozen cherries.

Preheat Oven to 400F
Sift the dry ingredients, mix the wet until just combined.
Drop 1/4 cupfuls onto the greased cookie sheet and pat the tops a bit and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake 12-14 min. until slightly browned on the bottom.

Taste: These were great. I am use to dry scones that are kind of flavorless. These are just slightly sweet and perfect. Somewhere between muffins and biscuits.

Notes: If you don't already own Vegan with a Vengeance, go out and buy it. it's a great cookbook made by a great cook.