Senior year of high school, I had one of five things for breakfast each morning: Greek yogurt with banana and muesli (when I was not yet vegan), overnight oats, avocado toast, toast with peanut butter and banana, or French toast. I loved making toast in the morning and starting off my day with something warm. Actually cooking something for breakfast allowed me to set the morning intention of being creative and active for the rest of the day. When I became vegan in March of 2017, I still made French toast using local eggs. But now that I’m at college, I have not had French toast in months! Fortunately, there are vegan ways of making French toast. Admittedly, they don’t quite capture the egginess of real French toast, but they nevertheless allow us to produce a warm, comforting morning meal.
So, the French toast! What a wholesome way to start my Monday morning. I developed this recipe myself, and it is super fun to make! Drink the leftover REBBL straight out of the bottle, or use it in another recipe (try this Cauliflower Matcha Mint Smoothie Bowl or this Matcha Mango Soaked Muesli). If you don’t have a banana, peaches and berries also go really well with matcha! I usually turn to French toast when I have stale bread on my hands. My mom dumped 3 ½ loaves of homemade sourdough on me last weekend, and while I love that stuff, I can’t possibly go through it all before it starts to harden. But when it’s used in French toast, you really can’t tell the difference. I also topped this toast with a healthy caramelized banana, which is a LOT easier to make than it sounds. Seriously. Vegan REBBL Matcha Latte French Toast (serves 1)
Ingredients: For the “egg” wash
1 Comment
Cooking food for other people is my #1 way of showing them love and appreciation. It's something in which I can take pride and something that inevitably makes friends and family happy, barring a failed recipe here and there. Yes, a little blood, a lot of sweat, and a ton of tears are involved (the last courtesy of onions), but that is exactly what makes the gift so special. The motto in my family, "Don't give a gift you can't use yourself," also holds true; being in the kitchen provides me the opportunity to be creative, and I always get a taste of what I'm cooking. Food is also a practical gift. When I was little, my mom told me to avoid gifting food because food doesn't last. In an age where we are all weighed down with clutter, though, I have realized that food is an awesome gift for a minimalist to both give and receive. And if the food is consumed alongside the person receiving it, allowing for good conversation and communion? Even better. I cooked a three-course picnic dinner for my Robertson family today: chips & homemade pineapple salsa, chipotle-mushroom tacos, and peanut-raisin-chocolate chip oat cookies. It took three hours to make, but I enjoyed every moment. True, the food didn't last; it rarely does when you have twenty college kids swarm around it at once. But the laughter, the dancing, the conviviality--all the positivity that sourced from a simple meal--will have a lasting impact on our relationships with each other. To my fellow Robbies, thank you for an amazing past eight months (and I can't wait to get to know the five of you who just joined us!). Thank you for simply existing and inspiring me with your dedication to youth education, refugee resettlement, environmental sustainability, and beyond. Thank you for being in my dorm room at the drop of a hat as I struggled with homesickness and an eating disorder. Thank you for the kind words you so generously shower on me, and thank you for allowing me--and believing me--when I do the same for you. Before college, I had been excluded from several social groups, and the fact that you recognize my existence and say "hi" to me and smile when you walk in the room...it means more than you know. I am not lying when I say that you are the best, most reliable and sincere group of friends I have ever been blessed to know. I love each and every one of you. And of course, this post would be incomplete if I didn't thank my friend Thomas for taking all these amazing photos. He spent two hours in a hot kitchen with me staging the photos, adjusting the lighting, and attempting to explain highly technical terms to my inexperienced mind. It was because of him I finally bought a book on food photography and am going to learn a skill I have wanted to learn for years. It will take me a long, long time and many, many cooking sessions to get to be anywhere near as good as him! Check out more of his photography here. A little bit about the food itself, because I really appreciate it too :) The chipotle-mushroom tacos and cookies were modeled after recipes from my vegan bible, the Isa Does It cookbook. I wrote about this cookbook several months ago, and I am still working my way through cooking every single recipe in the book. The salsa came from The No Meat Athlete Cookbook, another great resource. The pineapple combined with mint gave it a unique, fresh flavor.
I would gladly cook for any of you reading this; much appreciation and love for all! Eating healthy food is so much more appetizing when it just looks good. If presentation played no role in taste, then restaurants would not take the time to carefully crumple the cloth napkins in your bread baskets, to serve your pasta in perfect mounds, to expertly drizzle raspberry sauce over your cheesecake. So it makes sense that by likewise taking a little extra time to prepare and present our food, we will enhance our enjoyment of it. And it doesn't take your great-grandparents' expensive silverware to do the trick; if you have the inclination and a little bit of money, go get yourself a coconut bowl ($12.95 for a standard bowl). If you're reading this before Earth Day, 2018, you can literally get one for free (keep reading!). They are great for oatmeal, for smoothies, for noodles, for rice, for basically anything that is not an extreme temperature or too liquidy (aka no soup). Coconutbowls.com is doing a fantastic giveaway in honor of Earth Day. Not only have they donated 100 coconut bowls each to 5 restaurants, but they are giving $20 vouchers to each person who posts a picture on Instagram of themselves holding a coconut bowl or reusable container in front of a local café. This initiative is meant to combat the use of single-use plastic containers. Learn more here. Now that the weather is heating up and local fruits are about to come into season (got my eyes on Scooterbug's Strawberries!), I just want to constantly eat smoothie bowls. You'll probably be seeing more creations soon :)
About three weeks ago, I realized that my aversion to coffee and habit of cooking on my own has left me with an abundance of food points…I had $280 worth to spend on one meal a day, each day, for the next twenty-eight days. And because I always go for a $5 special or cook that one meal myself, the food at our student store became free reign. I took the opportunity to try out a few products I had never eaten before, including Maya Kaimal’s Madras Curry Indian Simmer Sauce. The ingredients are wholesome and simple: Onion, coconut cream, tomato paste, garlic, ginger, turmeric, chili, urad dal lentils, and curry leaves combine to create a creamy and perfectly spicy sauce in which to simmer vegetables. The producer also recommends pouring it over noodles, adding it to tacos and quesadillas, and using it as a pizza sauce (I'm definitely trying that last one out ASAP!). I used it for simmering vegetables. I started by sautéing onions and a can of jackfruit from Trader Joe's in coconut oil for a few minutes before adding corn, peas, sweet potato, bell pepper, and carrots. After the veggies began to ever so slightly soften, I added the curry sauce, covered the pan, and let it cook for another twenty minutes (until the sweet potatoes were tender). I paired it with some black rice, and dinner was ready to go! As convenient as those yellow Tasty Bite microwaveable packages are, this sauce is ten times better than any variation of instant curry. No complaints whatsoever. I would definitely include jackfruit in your dish, as it gave the meal texture and a slight sweetness to balance out the spice.
You can find the sauce in a store near you using this locator. Get cooking! Some of my favorite food bloggers (Rachel Mansfield and Lee Tilghman to name a few) have recently been posting pictures of toast with all the usual condiments (nut butter, fruit, seeds, etc.). The kicker? They frequently spread on a layer of vegan yogurt and top it all with granola. It’s a gamechanger! Because I have issues digesting peanut butter, I have been primarily eating sunflower seed butter for the past year. Since I eat soooooooo much during training season, though, I have been getting a little tired of it. And a $5 off cashew butter deal at the Fresh Market became that much more enticing. A lot of people don’t know about all the different types of nut and seed butters out there. You have peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, walnut butter, coconut butter, sunflower seed butter, pistachio butter, soy butter, pecan butter, hazelnut butter, pumpkin seed butter, and more…not to mention all the variations (simply adding cocoa powder or cinnamon can transform the spread). This recipe uses a combination of cashew butter and Lavva yogurt. The yogurt adds a distinct creaminess and tang to the toast, a flavor that I haven’t tasted since eating Old Chinese Yogurt in Shanghai last summer. You can use any kind of vegan yogurt (another favorite of mine is SoDelicious’ coconut-based yogurt). If you’re vegetarian, of course, you can use regular dairy-based yogurt. Enjoy! Cashew Butter Banana Yogurt Toast (makes one healthy serving) Ingredients:
A few weeks ago, we thought our lavender plant had died. Its beautiful purple flowers had dried up, and we realized that we may or may not have properly pruned it. A little research, though, reassured us that it was simply dormant for the winter. And the best part? Even though its flowers have dried, we can still use them for cooking and freshening up rooms (I'm thinking about putting a sprig in each of my nasty running shoes). But let's get back to the cooking. I had never seen lavender used as a culinary ingredient until visiting the Purple Bowl in Chapel Hill in February. The Purple Bowl is my new favorite smoothie bowl shop, as well as my new favorite eatery on Franklin Street. Their Appalachian Trail Bowl, an acai bowl blend with bananas, strawberries, and hemp milk, is topped with sliced bananas, raspberries, hemp hearts, cacao nibs, flax seeds, granola, cinnamon, and LAVENDER. Best. Smoothie bowl. Ever. The lavender was so rich in flavor and transformed the dish. So, naturally, the next time I visited home, I filled a bag to the brim with dried lavender and have been experimenting ever since. Lavender is a great addition to vegetables, but a lesser known fact is that it is a great addition to avocado toast. More specifically, avocado toast with mango and balsamic vinegar. And it tastes even better than it looks. I whipped this up in about ten minutes. I have also replaced the mango with green apple and strawberries with great success, but mango remains my favorite choice of fruit. Use the recipe below to try your hand at it!
Mango Avocado Toast with Lavender Ingredients
|
Archives
October 2018
Categories
All
|