Oh Breakfast, My Breakfast

In the words of that visionary man who paved the way for millions of children to sing triumphantly that that the cold never bothered them anyway:

Welcome to my vegan blog! Why another vegan blog when there are already a million stellar ones out there? 

Why the hell not? 

I don't know about you, but I can honestly say that when I'm in bed, scrolling through Pinterest on my phone in the wee small hours of the night while I'm supposed to be trying to sleep, I never get pissed by yet another picture of fantastic vegan food. I've seen more smoothies than you can count, more salad combinations than you can imagine and more step-by-step pictorials of how to build a vegan enchilada than you can shake a maraca at and I never get tired of it. I love me some food porn.

Especially when it's sexy, smokin' hot vegan food porn.

So, I decided to combine my love of writing and my love of seitan into a blog that will, hopefully, entertain both you and me while adding to the incredible wealth of other vegan blogs out there and I've decided to start with my favorite meal of the day.

Breakfast.

Maybe it's because I've been asleep all night long and so I wake up starving, my taste buds screaming for tastiness. Maybe it's because I prefer the flavor combinations that breakfast foods offer. Maybe it's because that first cup of coffee produces a euphoria that would make eating a shoe a transcendent experience. Who knows? I'd love to have some sort of eloquent explanation for why I love breakfast above other meals, but the best I can come up with is that it's just super fucking good. From scrambles, to oatmeal, to smoothies and tofu omelets, I can't get enough of breakfast. Hell, I even like eating breakfast for dinner (in which case I call it "brinner" as an homage to Mr. Christopher Turk, M.D. from Scrubs.)

Eat your heart out Denny's

Today's plate of awesome was made possible by the one and only Isa Chandra Moskowitz of The Post Punk Kitchen. Seriously, I have every book she's done and refer to all of them incessantly. My copy of Veganomicon is so well loved the pages are sticking together....that sounded unintentionally dirty. I'm sorry I said that.

(No I'm not.)

I used her book Vegan Brunch to make a perfect tofu scramble topped with mushrooms, bell pepper and power greens along with some truly delicious tempeh bacon. I honestly had no idea, until I used this recipe, that I had been making tofu scrambles all wrong. They always came out too dry and kind of flavorless. This recipe not only listed a perfect blend of spices, but I had no idea before I tried it that I should sprinkle the spices on and then mix a little water in so that the flavors could absorb into the tofu. The end result was light, fluffy and flavorful, especially after the addition of another ingredient that I learned about in the tofu omelet recipe from the same book.

Smells like farts, tastes like eggs. How's that for a slogan?

Black salt, or kala namak, is just table salt that has been heated along with other spices until it is pink and fairly sulfuric smelling. I picked this up at a specialty Indian market down the street, but you can find it in larger Asian grocery stores too. I first used it to make tofu omelets from Vegan Brunch and the smell that filled my kitchen imbued me with such dread that I almost couldn't bring myself to try the finished product. I'm gonna be blunt as we're all friends here, it smelled like a frat guy's nuclear beer farts. Once cooked though, the flavor mellows out a lot and you're left with a pleasant hint of eggy-ness that takes all egg inspired dishes to the next level. I sprinkle it in all of my scrambles now as well as tofu omelets. I'm a little obsessed with it actually.

A little coffee with french vanilla coconut creamer and slice of cinnamon raisin toast rounded everything out and left me wondering if I would suffer some sort of massive nutritional deficiency if I just went ahead and ate the exact same thing again for dinner. Don't worry, I probably won't.

Probably.