Baked French Toast

So, this is my go-to brunch/breakfast meal to serve when I have friends over for play dates.  It is awesome, versatile and easy.  Both kids and adults love it. It's a new staple in my house.  Thought some of you might like to give it a try. It is a great choice for feeding omnivore friends!

Easy Vegan Baked French Toast

Serves 4-6.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Butter a 9x13 baking dish (it will also fit in smaller but deeper baking dishes, use what you think will hold the bread covered with the custard, you may need to increase the baking time if you use a smaller dish).

Slice a loaf of one-day old bread (even two or three days old is totally fine) or a large baguette and arrange in your buttered baking dish.  The best bread makes the best French toast. 

In a small bowl, whisk together:

2 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer and 2 ½ tablespoons of water. Set aside.

In your food processor, combine all of the following ingredients:

1 package Silken tofu (the aseptic box kind) I use Mori-Nu, the firm or light kind.

2 tsp. Vanilla extract (Penzey’s if you’ve got it)

½ tsp Almond extract (ditto Penzey’s again)

½ cup Maple syrup (you can use ¼ cup if you want it less sweet)

1 tsp Cinnamon (I use Vietnamese cinnamon from Penzey’s)

¼ tsp Salt (regular table salt)

2 tablespoons oil (I use organic sunflower oil, you can use canola, or any other kind of oil that you’d like, or you can leave it out, no biggie)

For an awesome banana version: Add two very ripe bananas to this mix.  I highly recommend this version. For other versions, see below!

Blend it all up! Once it is totally smooth, add the egg replacer mixture and blend it some more.  Then, add 1 cup (more or less) of almond milk (you can use soy or any other kind of milk here, but I love almond).  Add the almond milk until your mixture is the consistency of pourable custard. One cup of almond milk makes a pretty thick custard.  If you have very tough bread and need more liquid, use more almond milk so your bread has more liquid to absorb. Give it a final few pulses to combine thoroughly.  Taste it and adjust if you see fit J

Pour the custard over the bread that is waiting in your prepared pan.  You can let it sit and absorb for a while or bake it right away.  If your bread is very hard, I’d let it sit at least 30-60 minutes to allow the bread to absorb the mixture.

Top with small pats of butter (I use Earth Balance), sprinkle with sugar (I use organic sugar), and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the custard is set and the edges of the bread start to brown. Let sit five minutes before slicing (if you can wait!). Enjoy with fresh fruit, veggie sausages, whatever you like with your French toast! This doesn’t need more syrup or butter added to it upon serving, but go for it if you want to!

Other great variations:

Nutty Version: Add raw walnuts or pecans (halves or chopped pieces) on top prior to baking.  The nuts will toast in the oven!

Fruity Version: Add berries or whatever fruit you like to the layered bread before you pour the custard in.  Strawberries, blueberries, even more sliced banana, I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t work here.  

Chocolate Version: Stir ½ to 1 cup (or more if you like!) of chocolate chips into the custard right before you pour it over the bread. Add ½ tsp of chocolate extract to the other extracts to give it an extra chocolately punch.  Or add orange extract for a chocolate-orange version. YUM.

Let me know if you give it a try.  I am in love with this recipe. 

Have a great weekend!

<3 Dawn

 It is SO good, I can never get a good picture of it! Anyway, you get the idea.

Garden Fazool: Over the Top

If you guys remember, in April, I planted organic tomatoes from seed:

Dug a little tomato garden:

And put the one month old seedlings in (this was in May)...

And today, here is what we've got:

Tomatoes reaching over the top of my fence! 

 Tons of little, green marbles :-) 

Starting to redden...

And the figs, you ask? Here's the tree two months ago:

And now?

And it's loaded with figs!

Does anyone have ripe, red tomatoes already? Anyone with ripe figs yet? My figs seem particularly slow to ripen (though that may be a factor of the enormous amount of fruit on the tree at one time, and the coolish summer we've had (until now, of course :-).

Stay cool in this heat! Yesterday it was so hot and hazy that all my pics came out with a fog over them.  It was 103 yesterday, but this was taken in the evening when it had "cooled" to 100

Today, still very hot but a bit more tolerable at about 92 in the shade this morning.

Have a great week!  I'll try to get a food post up soon, I've got lots of stuff to share!

<3 Dawn

Black Bean Burgers of New Jersey

I developed a NO sauté NO food processor veggie burger and I am so proud!  It is also (mostly) gluten free, as I don't particularly like vital wheat gluten in vegan burgers sometimes.  You could sub for the breadcrumbs with oats ground up in your food processor or more chickpea flour or other gluten free flour. And, it's soy free, for those of you who are allergic to soy! These are super easy and taste fantastic.  Perfect for the 4^th of July weekend that is quickly approaching!  Bring your vegan treasures to an omnivorous party and watch them get gobbled up (make a double batch if you are taking them to a barbeque!).  Try to use as many organic ingredients as you can, but if you don’t have any on hand, conventional ones are OK.  Enjoy!

AWESOME Black Bean Burgers of New Jersey J

Soy free, (mostly) gluten free, pretty much work free :-)

2 cans black beans (organic if possible!!)

1 cup corn (frozen or fresh)

2 garlic cloves, chopped

½ sweet onion, chopped

½ cup chopped organic, fire roasted, red peppers (jarred in water) or roast fresh ones if u want.

1 tsp oregano

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp salt (I use coarse Kosher salt, you can also use sea salt)

1 tablespoon Cholula hot sauce (more if you want it spicier)

½ cup garbanzo bean (chickpea) flour

½ cup bread crumbs (freshly made if possible)

¼ cup freshly chopped cilantro (if you have it)

2 Ener-G egg replacer eggs (3 tsp egg replacer powder and 4 tablespoons of water)

In a small bowl, whisk the egg replacer powder and water until it is creamy and frothy. Set aside.

Drain and rinse beans in a colander.  Place in a large bowl (where all your ingredients will fit) and mash with a fork.  Add the rest of the ingredients and the egg replacer mixture. Mix it up with a big spoon or just with your hands. That’s it.

You can let it rest at this point in the refrigerator if you want to (or need to) for an hour or so or even up to overnight.  Some folks say resting in the fridge makes it easier to shape veggie burgers.  Or, you can just go ahead and make it into burgers without resting it (which is what I did).  I use a large oxo scoop to grab the burger mixture (way overflowing over the scoop, I just use it to help eyeball the size) so they are all about the same size. Then I roll them into balls in my hands and flatten them on the baking sheet or tray. Done.

You can bake, grill or sauté these burgers when you are ready. 

To Grill:
I use a disposable aluminum baking pan that fits in my grill. I line it with extra foil, and generously oil the foil with olive oil.  Put the raw burgers on your prepared baking tray and place on your grill.  I used a hot fire (I have a charcoal grill, so the fire is hot, but you can use lower heat if you have a gas grill) and grilled about 6 minutes or a little longer on the first side with the lid down.  Be sure to brush them with olive oil before you flip them over inside the pan, and then grill another few minutes until golden on the second side.  That's it!

To Bake: Line a baking sheet with foil (you don’t have to but it makes clean up a lot easier) and brush generously with olive oil.  Put the burgers on and brush the tops with olive oil.  Bake at 400 for 10 minutes.  Flip, bake another 10 minutes.  You want them nice and brown on both sides (or at least that’s how I like them!).

Or, sauté: on medium heat in olive oil until golden on each side, again, about 6 minutes or so per side.

Serve with sliced avocado, fresh cilantro, vegan mayo or vegan sour cream (like Tofutti’s brand, which is excellent) and extra hot sauce, or any burger topping you like!

Enjoy your 4^th of July weekend!!!

Garden Fazool: Growing Up!

In a mere nine days, my garden has done so much growing up!

Nine days ago:

 Tomatoes up to the second rung on the cages...

 Rainbow garden still SO painfully slow.  And no rainbow chard seems to have made it :-( 

Must have been the lousy asphalt ridden soil I was hitting when I dug it up, they couldn't put strong roots down...

 Rogue sunflower :-) reseeded itself from last year!

 Fig tree coming along nicely.

We started another herb bed along the side of the house.

And now, only NINE days later, look what we've got:

 Rogue sunflower is about six feet tall, or more!

 We got a visitor, maybe brown-eyed coreopsis? Not sure, but I love it!

 Fig tree looking good and teeny tiny fig buds can be seen at all the joints!!!

 Hydrangea blooming!

 Tomatoes growing up over the tops of the cages!!! 

 Remember the fourth tomato plant that was getting whaled on by the flea beetles? Well, the cayenne pepper worked and now it is healthy and thriving (though still a tiny bit smaller than my other plants).

My future tomatoes.

 Slowly but surely (at least the basil likes it OK in the "Rainbow Garden" ;-)

 Cheater plants from Lowes.  I threw in some basil and parsley seed, too, but no action yet...

 Another pic of my tomatoes! Tiger lillies blooming in the back!

 Thistle, I think.

 Double Yellow Coreopsis ("Jethro Tull" Coreopsis!)

 Nice shot of the front yard.

 Butterfly weed (Orange Milkweed). The bees LOVE it.  It is always covered with honeybees and bumblebees!

 The Bee Balm is flowering (Thanks, Jane!)

Skipper in the lavender.

Momma groundhog's entrance to our yard! I tried to block it up with bricks, but she just shoved them to the side! She only eats our clover, so it doesn't really matter, anyway.

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend, enjoy the first week of summer!

Toaster Oven Tofu

You can bake tofu in the toaster oven.  It works very well and it doesn't heat the whole house up!  Awesome.  Wish I thought of it last summer, but anyway...

I marinated mine in a delish orange/sesame-ish marinade: fresh organic orange zest/orange juice from two whole oranges, organic tamari, fresh chopped garlic, brown rice syrup, and some toasted sesame oil and water to bring up the volume.  Then I toasted it on an olive oiled, tin foil lined tray, perfection! Served with coconut rice (leftover coconut milk from making ice cream with the cream :-) and steamed peas.

What did you guys make on this steamy night? We've got at least two or three more of these boilers to go, so let's get some ideas going...

Maybe this for tomorrow night?  Another vegan toaster oven special :-)

Back In The Kitchen

Tonight's Dinner:

 These are Tony's Noodles with organic, whole wheat spaghetti (you can make them with agave instead of honey if you like).  Perfect for a 90 degree evening.

Dessert:

Isa's Vanilla Ice Cream from Veganomicon, tastes like Bryer's, seriously!!  I required ice cream tonight.

Cooks Note: If you make it, play it safe and don't add the vanilla until the very end. If you add it at the beginning, it may never freeze totally due to the alcohol in the vanilla extract.  It depends which extract and probably which machine you are using, but I use Penzey's extract and also tried McCormick and it happened both times.  Then, I decided to just add the extract at the VERY end of the ice cream maker's cycle. Now, perfection :-).

And, from my cooking adventures this weekend, 

The NO saute, NO food processor, Amazing Black Bean Burgers of New Jersey

 Recipe coming soon to this blog! :-) 

Classic Pesto Pasta Salad (with Campanelles) and Grape Tomatoes

Dreena Burton's Super Charge Me Cookies (from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan)

 These are unbelievable.  LOVE them.  

And, my friend, the ground hog making his holiday rounds.  

He just seems to eat my clover, not my plants, so for now, I'll leave him alone.

What have you all been making in this hot weather?