Tofu Omelettes: Part Two

This has to be a first. I don't believe I have ever blogged about the same subject twice. At least not in two consecutive posts anyhow! But I cannot help myself - I am still just totally bowled over by the whole tofu omelette thing and I now have pictures to prove it...erm, I mean 'to share.'

This morning, My Beloved and I made a second attempt at the brunch omelettes, this time stuffing them with leftovers from last night's dinner.

[Sidebar: Since it had been such a wonderful summery day yesterday, we made plans to grill and assembled a motley crew of vegetable victims - a couple of squash (one zucchini, one yellow squash), a gigantic green pepper, a more modest pepper of the orange variety, two portobella mushrooms the size of small dinner plates, cauliflower and broccoli florets and some thick slices of red onion. Having tossed them in a little olive oil, garlic salt and a dash of chipotle pepper, we stepped outside to throw them on the grill only to find that the heavens had opened and it was now pouring with rain.

Undaunted, in that peculiarly British fashion, we grilled in the rain. Well, My Beloved did, and I leant support from the relative safety of the kitchen. Finally, when he considered them done to perfection, My Beloved appeared at the screen-door, bedraggled and dripping wet but proudly bearing a platter of the most intensely delicious-smelling vegetables ever. End sidebar and fast-forward back to this morning's brunch.....]


OK, so the batter looks a little scary, but perservere and you will be rewarded....



Starting to look like the omelettes we all used to know and love...


Drape over a selection of your favourite grilled vegetables....




...fold and we're in business!

And they were 'the business'. Terrific. Tremendous. Delicious and fantastically more-ish. My Beloved, who - to my eternal annoyance - is of a preternatural slenderness, decided that we absolutely had to make the recipe stretch to TWO EACH.

Two.

Each.

I quietly thanked the tofu gods that the batter did not go that far - I would have ended up looking like the Pilsbury Doughboy....Or at least even more so than usual. LOL

Anyways, I have to say - this recipe is no one-hit wonder. It was just as good the second time as the first and got us both thinking about other ways we could use it for weekday dinners. OK, omelettes are great but what about the spanish omelette/tortillas we used to make back in our egg-eating days? I imagine that we could cook up some veg, make a few fried potatoes (homefries-style), fold them all into the batter and pour the whole thing into a somewhat shallow dish to bake until firm. I am poised to experiment. Served with a fresh green salad and a hunk of crusty bread, I can see this going down really rather well as a mid-week dinner treat.

However for now, I thought you might like to see the 'proof positive' of the true magnificence of this recipe from Isa's Vegan Brunch. And, if you are teetering on the verge of trying once again to satisfy your post-egg omelette cravings, to nudge you over the edge into trying out this dish. Believe me....it's well worth it!

Let me know how it goes and stay vegan, friends!

Whether for breakfast, dinner or brunch...

Last night, I experienced a true breakthrough moment. You know how there are always things that you miss from the pre-vegan days? Milk chocolate....sharp cheddar cheese...BLTs??? Fill in your own non-vegan favourite here...

Well, one of mine is the humble omelette. Which, as the saying goes, you can't make without breaking eggs. Right?

Wrong!

Last night My Beloved and I attempted Isa's Tofu Omelette from the Vegan Brunch. And I have only one thing to say:


PHENOMENAL!!!


OK, I have no picture for you as My Beloved and I fell upon and devoured them as if we'd not eaten in years. Which, I suppose in terms specifically of omelettes, we had not. However, this is the official image, courtesy of the PPK:





I'm usually skeptical of official foodie photos as I'm sure they are all styled and doctored - at least that's what I tell myself when my own attempts turn out to be less than perfect. However, this image truly does the omelette justice - mine turned out an equally delightful eggy-yellow shade with a nice browning on the underside. Stuffed with a mix of onions, peppers, mushrooms and great northern beans with a little fennel seed and garlic and served with a simple green salad, it made for a really great dinner on a busy week-night.

Yes, I have to admit that the process is a bit more complex than cracking a few eggs into a bowl but I think the extra - perhaps - 5 minutes it took me to make the batter is insignificant against the 30 tortured hours it takes a battery hen to produce one egg. And the result was fabulously fluffy, light, moist in the center and delightfully cheesy, due to the chickpea flour and the nutritional yeast.

Never ever again will I be intimidated by the thought of omelettes...and I simply cannot wait now for the weekend when we'll be making them again as Isa intended...for brunch!

Buy this book, try this recipe and stay vegan, friends! :)

Vegans only eat lettuce and tree bark, right?

It's really hard being vegan, isn't it?

I mean...

It.....Is.....Hard!

There's just soooooo much to give up.
To feel *totally* deprived about.
Oh, but I can't - just CAN'T - give up my ______ [fill in the blank here].

Yes, indeed, it is a salad-and-tree-bark-munching life of ascetic deprivation.


Yeah right!!!!!


I bought a crepe pan last weekend and tested out Isa's recipe from 'Vegan Brunch'. And - boy oh boy - was it good! Look...





This tender little crepe made of a mix of chickpea, tapioca and all-purpose flours, non-dairy milk and some maple syrup is stuffed full of a sauce of fresh strawberries scented with rosewater. The recipe made 9 of these babies - 4 each for My Beloved and I, with the remaining one split between two very hopeful puppies who declared them possibly the best breakfast crepes THEY'D ever had. Here's Darwin pleading his case for a taste:




Who could resist that look?? Or those crepes!! Try them for yourselves and then tell me all about how extreme and deprived the vegan life is!!

:-)