Weird Kind of Morning

Usually when my alarm goes off I do not want to get out of bed. I consider myself mostly a morning person. I am definitely not a night person (I'm usually in bed by at least 10 every night), but I'd almost always rather stay in bed than get the day started. Today, not so much. I was out of bed with gusto when my alarm went off and as a result, I'm almost ready for work a full 30 minutes early. Your benefit I suppose. Here are some things I've been meaning to show you.

I bought a box of the Amy's Bistro Burgers and regardless of the fact that I had no buns and had to improvise with a pita, managed to make a fairly good recreation of a quarter pounder from my youth. Tofutti cheese singles are not the greatest thing ever, but in combination with other foods they make for some decent nostalgia.

 

Quarter pounders don't typically have tomato, but I did, so there. This was delicious by the way.

I went through a couple of weeks where I was making burritos like every other day. I developed this lovely technique of putting the burrito seam side down on a hot cast iron skillet to keep it from opening. Genius? You tell me.

Mostly I use refried or whole beans with rice, lettuce and salsa for the boyfriend and add in some avocado for myself, but these were tofu scramble, greens and potato burritos.

My boyfriend never really shops for food. He works in a grocery store 2 days a week and usually the only thing he'll buy is bananas but one day he bought a couple of things including some chocolate for me! And here's how I used it.

First I mixed some peanut butter with some oats and I think a few mini chocolate chips.

Then I added on the melted chocolate and it was almost like a lazy, more healthy resee's. Only more healthy in that it had oats. Delicious.

One day I was wandering the interwebs when I came across the idea for cinnamon roll pancakes. The recipe was not vegan so I just winged it the next morning, before work mind you. The cinnamon swirl kind of cooked into the pancake instead of staying clearly swirled, but topped with a drizzle of icing, these were unbelievable.

Not exactly every morning food.

And finally, I leave you with the tofu omelette that I made Sunday morning. My boyfriend was not a fan as they were a bit more mushy than he would have preferred, but I thought they were delicious!




Alright, that's enough from me as it is now almost time to leave. Thanks for keeping me company while I wasted time before work!

Pancakes!

Yesterday, Miss Elise over at Hungry Hungry Hippie posted a picture of the most fluffy, delicious looking pancakes ever! Luckily for me and you, she posted the recipe this morning and I have already tried it. I used all whole wheat pastry flour since I did not have coconut flour. I wasn't sure if my not over ripe banana would work, but it seemed to do the job just fine.

I topped mine with some earth balance and some strawberries and blueberries that I let marinate in some maple syrup. For a recipe with no sugar and no oil, these turned out so much better than the usual pancakes I make and I think I may have just found that simpler = better when it comes to pancakes.

I tried to get an inside shot so you could see the fluffiness, but the sun interfered. I guess you'll just have to go check out Elise's much better pictures so you can drool over the fluffiness. You're only about 15 minutes away from pancakes in your belly. What are you waiting for?

Pancakes & Garage Sales

This was my first attempt to make pancakes without a recipe.  It was decent but landed more in the fail column than in the win column.  I wanted them to come out a bit on the thicker side so I was afraid to add too much liquid and in the end they turned out half an inch thick.  Definitely were not bad though.

I wanted to show you how I cook my pancakes on my garage sales finds.

This is my beautiful cast iron skillet (I love it so much I should give it a name.  I think I'll call it Vera.  Firefly, anyone?).  As I have mentioned before, I got this baby at a garage sale for $1!  Find of the century for me.  I had been wanting one for so long and even looked to buy one new but they were about $20 - $30.  For something that I wasn't 100% sure I would ever need, I didn't think it was worth the price so I continued to look at garage sales until one day the garage sale gods smiled down on me.  Now, while I love Vera and she makes great pancakes, she only makes one at a time.  And me, I'm a multi-tasker.  I don't do one thing at once hardly ever.  Luckily I made another garage sale find that fixed this problem.

When I first started coming over to my boyfriend's house, I noticed one day that his mom had a cast iron griddle that sat upon two burners.  I thought this was one of the most genius inventions ever and immediately wanted one.  Could I find one?  Of course not.  I looked for months and then one random day, this showed up at a garage sale.  It only sits across one burner but it lets me cook two pancakes at a time which means, combined with Vera, I can make THREE pancakes at once!  Score!

What are your thoughts on cast iron?  I personally think it is the most amazing, incredible equipment I have ever used.

Pizza and Pancakes

The other day I bought some canned pumpkin to make some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  When I opened the can and then looked at the label I noticed that it said it was pumpkin pie filling not pure pumpkin.  This would not have been a problem if I hadn't already added sugar and spices to my mixture!  Luckily I had another can of pure pumpkin in my pantry and I was able to finish the muffins.  But this left me with an open can of pumpkin pie mix.  What was I to do?  It sat in my fridge for a week while I debated between Pumpkin Scones and Pumpkin Brownies and various other pumpkin goodies.  Then this morning I went on a walk and I thought, Pumpkin Pancakes!  When I returned home I made this recipe and let me tell you, this is the pancake recipe I have been searching for since turning vegan.  Since I had a can that had 1.5 cups pumpkin and the recipe only called for .5 cups I tripled the recipe and I am so glad I did!

It seems that most pancake recipes I try turn out not so structured.  They are flimsy and more like crepes, but not in a good way.  These were so thick and full of structure!  I don't know if it was the pumpkin that did this, but if it was I will never make pancakes without pumpkin again!  To top the pancakes I thought something with cranberries would be delicious.  I took a couple of handfulls of frozen cranberries and put them in a small sauce pan with a little bit of agave nectar and let it cook until the cranberries popped.  I also added just a bit of arrowroot powder because in the beginning it looked way to watery but I don't think this step was necessary.

When the first batch was cooked I cut one in half to check how the inside looked.  It looked beautiful and when I dipped it in the cranberry jelly I almost died.  Okay that's a little over the top.  But damn these were good.

Then when I went to transfer the pictures to my computer I noticed that I had completely forgotten about the beautiful pictures I took of the pizza I made last weekend.

 I have had my fair share of failed crusts, but this one turned out mostly decent.  For toppings, there are red bell peppers, red onions, kalamata olives, chard, vegan pepperoni and some vegan cheese.  This pizza was soooo good and I am ashamed to say I ate the whole thing in one sitting.

I am currently working on another pizza but the crust is not showing much potential.  I don't know why I just can't get the hang of kneading....

Pancakes Galore!

As the title suggests, I may have gone a little overboard with the pancakes this weekend.  As I am a little later to work than I would like and this is my 4th? post this morning, I think I will keep this short and sweet.  Base recipe: Vegan with a Vengeance.

Extra Cinnamon

Cocoa Powder (though, not really enough)

Peppermint Extract

2nd half of peppermint extract with cocoa powder.  Nom.  These were the best.