Vegan Breakfast Biscuit

One of the things that’s not really available around here is a good vegan breakfast sandwich. At least, not yet. But you can make your own. And it’s not all that hard, either. Especially with all the great products that are on the market now. I already had a package of Match Vegan Meats Breakfast Sausage left over from the batch they sent me to make holiday loafs. And Chicago Soy Dairy sent me some Teese to play with for their blogger challenge.

So here was my plan. Tall fluffy biscuits. This recipe made the fluffy awesomeness you see in the photo. For the “egg”, I started with Susan’s crustless tofu quiche recipe. I omitted the bell pepper, mushrooms, chives and rosemary and replaced the fresh garlic with a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder since I wasn’t going to fry it up. Then, instead of baking them in a muffin pan, I spread it out in a rectangular baking pan then cut into squares to go on the muffin. The Match was just formed into patties, fried in a pan with only salt and pepper as seasoning. To assemble, the biscuit was split, a couple of thin slices of the Teese creamy cheddar was put on the top half and then I slid it under to broiler to melt. Sausage and tofu egg was placed on the bottom half then everything was put together once the Teese was melty.

These were amazing! I do have a couple of changes I’d make though. I made 3 oz. sausage patties which were a little too much. 2 oz. might be thin enough. I’d try to make the tofu egg a little dryer. Maybe half the soy milk and cook it a little longer. And I’d probably switch to regular cheddar Teese so it would contain a little less moisture.

POM Smoothie

Since we got back from our gorgefest in NYC in November, I switched to a smoothie for breakfast instead of cereal. And I guess it’s a habit now because I’m still doing it. That’s a couple more fruit servings a day than I was getting before. Yay me!

The folks at POM Wonderful offered to send me some more pomegranate juice. Thinking of my morning smoothies I said “hell yeah, gimme!” Or something similar. I may have tried one smoothie when they sent a past batch of juice, but now I have that whole thing down and can get into it more.

pomegranate juice smoothie

POM Smoothie

1 banana
1/4 cup frozen blueberries or strawberries
1/2 tsp chia seeds
1 scoop Sun Warrior rice protein powder, natural
1 tsp agave nectar
1/2 cup POM 100% pomegranate juice
3/4 cup unsweetened vanilla rice milk

Throw into a blender. Blend. Drink.

The blueberry variation was the first I tried. Mainly because I’m lazy. This is my normal go to smoothie with some pomegranate juice subbed for some of the rice milk. The chia seeds are a fairly recent addition. They seem to give it that little extra needed to carry me through to lunch without wanting to attack snacks. Too much. While this version was perfectly tasty, trading the blueberries for strawberries was even better. The pomegranate and strawberries seem to boost the flavor of each. Gives you an extra fruity punch.

Since I haven’t been cooking much lately, the rest of the juice will probably end up in smoothies. I’m considering substituting pineapple for the berries. Hopefully that won’t be gross.

Bake Sale Success!

It was nasty, rainy and a little icy but people still came out. Atlanta’s Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti this Saturday raised $1365 for Doctors Without Borders. Holy Crap! A special thanks to Kristin for organizing the whole thing and Criminal Records for not just agreeing to let us do it in front of their store, but letting us take over the back of the store when the weather turned nasty. Those guys rock!

Kristin has a great round-up of participants here. I’d like to also add thanks to Alicia Simpson, author of Vegan Comfort Food, Alison Brown, Lisa Bennett and a guy named David, I think, for bringing out goodies to sell. The hard work of everyone involved enabled us to turn a bit of labor and ingredients into a much larger donation for Haiti.

And now, for some of my crappy pictures!

Setting up in the back of Criminal Records
Setting up in the back of Criminal Records
Becky & Kristin load up Table 1
Becky & Kristin load up Table 1
Front of Table 2
Front of Table 2
side of table 2
side of table 2

Some of my contributions:

hearts and flowers sandwich cookies, mini marble bundt cakes, brownies, beard-friendly mini cupcakes on a stick
hearts and flowers cookies close-up
nekkid bundt cakes before they got their glaze

Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti

vegan bake sale for haiti

Remember how awesome the World Vegan Bake Sale was this summer? What? You missed it??? Well, guess what, there’s going to be a bonus one this year to help Haiti.

When: Saturday, January 30, 2010

Time: noon – 4pm

Where: in front of Criminal Records in Little 5 Points [map]

Benefitting: Doctors Without Borders USA

Facebook: spread it around and find out how to participate as a baker if you’d like

Australian Match Meat Pie

We know Match Vegan Meats gives you a bunch of recipes to try on their website. But Match is also good for substituting in meaty recipes. If you happen to have some old family favorite you haven’t made since you turned vegan, try it with Match. It works best in recipes that bring flavor and don’t rely on the meat for the flavor.

This past week I did a little experimentation for a new sort-of-secret-but-not-really venture. The Australians seem to have down the idea of a meal wrapped up in easy to carry around pastry. The centerpiece seems to be the meat pie. So that’s the first thing I tackled. And I’m so happy with the result that I don’t think I’ll change a thing.

Sorry, I won’t be giving up a recipe on this one. But there are plenty of recipes out there to veganize. Have at it!