"Eggs" and potatoes for breakfast

Now that I know I can tolerate Non-GMO soy, I decided to take a stab at tofu scramble.  I always enjoyed scrambled eggs in the mornings, and tofu scramble is as close as vegans can get.

When I picked out my tofu at the store on Monday, I decided to go with Mori-Nu brand silken extra-firm tofu, rather than regular tofu.  My only reason was that the package size was smaller, and since I'm currently the only tofu-eater in my house, it seems less wasteful.

The difference between silken tofu and regular tofu is mainly in texture.  I feel like I see silken tofu more often in dessert recipes - it's allegedly more creamy than regular tofu.  When I opened the package, it definitely looked like a block of cream cheese - less little pockets than regular tofu.  When I handled it, I felt like the texture resembled hard-boiled eggs, which, to me, was perfect for this tofu scramble experiment.  My guess is that silken tofu might also make an excellent "egg salad."

Since I tend to oversleep in the mornings, I need a breakfast which doesn't take a lot of time to prepare (aka, why I usually default to toast).  So I decided to prep my tofu-scramble and some roasted potatoes Monday late afternoon to reheat for today's breakfast.  First, I pressed the tofu for 15 minutes.  While the tofu was pressing, I chopped a small amount of red onion finely.

I heated a little under a tablespoon of olive oil for a minute or so, and then sauteed the onion.  I then crumbled the tofu into the pan, breaking it up further with a wooden spatula.  A number of blogs I've read have suggested adding tumeric to the tofu to give it an "eggy" color, so I stirred in a teaspoon of tumeric, along with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt.  I let the mix cook for about minutes, stirring it frequently to keep it from sticking to the bottom of my pan.  When the tofu was lightly browned, I took it off the heat and stirred in some dried parsley, and then put it in a glass container. This morning, I reheated it in the microwave with a touch of mozzarella daiya, along with some leftover cooked broccoli.  I think next time I will need to be more aggressive with the seasoning, but it was tasty.

What goes nicely with "scrambled eggs"?  Breakfast potatoes!  I had some leftover mini red, purple and gold mini-potatoes, so I chopped them up small and tossed them in olive oil, dried minced onion, sea salt and pepper.  I let them roast in a single layer in a pyrex dish at 425 for 30 minutes, stirring them at one point so they wouldn't stick.  I reheated them this morning in the toaster, rather than microwaving them, so they'd stay crispy.

What are your favorite vegan breakfast treats?

Vegan Farro Alfredo

I was all set to just do a quick concoction with my farro and whatever I had in the fridge.  But, right before I left work, I saw a Facebook post by Made Just Right by Earth Balance for Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo that looked absolutely delicious.  I had a number of ingredients already in the fridge at home, so I decided to do a farro alfredo.

I followed the recipe fairly closely, with a few changes.  First, I cut the tofu a bit smaller than the recipe suggested, and broke it up with a spatula as I cooked it.  I used Nasoya's Extra Firm Tofu Plus, which is fortified with B6, B12, D and Calcium.  It never hurts to get extra of these vitamins!  There's only 8 grams of protein per serving, which surprised me, especially compared to last night's Gardein dish, which had 17 grams.

Anyhow, I don't think I drained the tofu as well as I should have, as it didn't brown as much as the picture did.  I did also elect to season it with white pepper and sea salt before adding the veggies, rather than wait to season at the end as the recipe suggested.

I also omitted the peas, as I am not a pea lover.  In retrospect, I could have upped the broccoli and the carrots to compensate, but it didn't occur to me at the time.  Since I had pre-cooked the farro last night, I added it into the veggies with a few minutes to go to warm it through.  Also, I used unsweetened almond milk instead of soy milk, since I had an open carton of almond milk in the house.  I also used Italian Seasoning rather than just basil, and I reseasoned the whole mix with sea salt and white pepper after adding the sauce into the veggie and farro mix.

I was definitely happy with this dish - it was creamy and flavorful, but perhaps a bit on the heavy side for a weeknight dinner.  Granted, it was a lot lighter than the non-vegan version of an Alfredo.  To lighten it up a bit, you can probably omit the tofu.  Also, the husband was even willing to try it and pronounced it good and repeatable.  I have some leftovers in the fridge, so we'll see how it reheats!