Vegan Spiced Peach Carrot Bread

Just because you’re vegan, that doesn’t mean you have to throw out all of your non-vegan cookbooks. Making a recipe vegan is oftentimes really simple. If the recipe is good in the first place, making it vegan won’t change that fact.

This June, the peach tree we had at the bakery produced a bumper crop. So many peaches. So I needed to come up with some more ways to use them. I did the expected peach cobbler, peach pie, and even some peach crumb muffins. So I turned to the internet like we modern folks do. And this Spiced Peach Carrot Bread caught my eye.

When trying to find an easy baking recipe to veganize, look for one that has two or fewer eggs. It’s not that you can’t veganize one with more eggs, fewer is just easier. Milk and butter are easy to replace your non-dairy milk of choice and Earth Balance.  My egg replacer of choice in most baked goods is flax. I use one tablespoon of ground flax plus two tablespoons of warm water to replace each egg. So here’s this recipe above as made and served at the bakery:

Vegan Spiced Peach Carrot Bread

vegan spiced peach carrot bread

Ingredients

¾ cup chopped pecans
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 ½ cups peeled and chopped fresh, ripe peaches
¾ cup freshly grated carrots
⅔ cup vegetable oil
½ cup non-dairy milk
2 flax eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°. Toast pecans in pan on stove top until fragrant. Cool 15 minutes.

Stir together flour and the rest of the dry ingredients in a large bowl; add peaches, remaining ingredients, and toasted pecans, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Spoon batter into a lightly greased 9- x 5-inch loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack, and cool completely (about 1 hour).

Vegan cheese grits

Despite growing up in the South, I never ate grits growing up. It was mostly a texture thing. I didn’t like anything mushy like that. Mashed potatoes don’t count.

Once I started making vegan cheese grits I felt stupid for not making them before. They’re so easy, cheap and delicious! So here’s my basic recipe. I use Daiya in these because the flavor is stronger than most of the other vegan cheeses.

Vegan Cheese Grits

Ingredients

5 1/3 cups water or unsweetened non-dairy milk
1 1/3 cups white corn grits
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup Daiya mozzarella or cheddar shreds

white corn grits

Bring the water or non-dairy milk to boil. Slowly stir in grits then add salt and pepper. Cook on medium until it starts to thicken. Stir in Daiya. Continue to cook a minute or two more until it’s the thickness you want. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Makes about 6 servings.

cooking vegan cheese grits

These particular vegan cheese grits ended up with sausage gravy on top. Perfect for a Breakfast for Dinner situation.

vegan cheese grits and gravy

Fabulous brunch potluck

We’re pretty much potluck crazy. Since vegan brunch options are limited in Atlanta, it’s always a good choice.

In the back, biscuits, gravy, cheezy grits with sausage. In front, apples, banana waffles and, uh, another waffle type.

 

 

Two quiches, coffee cake, banana chocolate chip muffins, beverages.

My plate of goodness.

Since Boston Terriers were welcome, I brought Tak over. Slayer spent the whole time chasing her around the loft trying to hump her. One day we’re going to have to get all 4 BTs in one place. That’ll be ridiculous.

Afterwards most of us headed over to Octane which has now opened a location convenient to us. Yay!

The next potluck post has a goatse theme. Why yes, there might just be something wrong with us.

Wayward Vegan Cafe, Round 2

Our last meal in Seattle was a return trip to Wayward Vegan Cafe. There were too many things left behind on the menu that we hadn’t tried yet.

I got the breakfast biscuit sandwich. Who doesn’t like old school hash browns? My only complaint is that it was basically scramble on a biscuit which was kind of hard to pick up and eat. Omelet style would have been easier.

Kevin got the blintz. Some vegan blintzes in Atlanta would be awesome.

Someone got pancakes. I’m not sure who.

And we got a club sandwich to eat on the plane later. It held up pretty well. I bet it was delicious right out of the kitchen.

And that’s the end of the Seattle gorge fest. 🙁

Wayward Vegan Cafe, round 1

Apparently cinnamon rolls grow on trees in Seattle. When we got to Wayward Vegan Cafe they had a whole pan of these things sitting right next to the register where you order. Really? How the hell can you avoid ordering that when it’s staring at you like that? The answer is, you can’t.

Hillbilly Omelet: filled with sausage and hash browns, covered with gravy, deep fried potatoes on the side. Oooof.

Kevin got Seitan on a Shingle:

Jared models his Country Fried Steak:

 

Beth displays her French Toast:

Kevin offers up his grits:

And here is Taylor molesting his burrito, not sure which one.