This is breakfast?

Why, yes. Anything can be breakfast. And if you are breakfast resistant like I can be sometimes, why not just eat what you feel like eating instead of forcing yourself to eat a traditional breakfast food, or worse, avoiding the whole breakfast thing. Eating a good breakfast is really important, and I know that, so when the cereal/fruit thing doesn't appeal to me, I eat something that may be weird, but as long as it's nourishing and appealing, then why not? If I want broccoli and Shan tofu over rice with a spritz of sriracha, that's what I have. I can't tell you how often I crave broccoli in the morning, but we always have a big bag of it in the fridge so I can accommodate my desire. Sometimes oatmeal just seems gross and broccoli sounds delicious.

When I saw a pudla post on Cakemaker to the Stars, I thought I was too lazy to make these delicious savory pancakes for breakfast, even though she insists the pancakes are for lazy people. Yes, I love chickpea flour pancakes in any form and in any language — socca, besan jo chillo, pudla, cecina — but like I said, I'm resistant to cooking in the morning. Morning is when I'm most likely to use the microwave. But, I just happened to have a bag of shredded cabbage, sliced radishes and green onions leftover from the previous night's salad, so mixing chickpea flour and water with some already prepared veggies and spreading the batter on a griddle seemed doable even for me. It was so good I made some the next day, too.

If I'm in the mood for a more "breakfasty" meal, I might go with Bob's Red Mill creamy buckwheat cereal, cooked with raisins and sprinkled with cinnamon, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, and frozen cherries — or whatever fruit appeals to me at the moment. Sometimes the fruit might be kalamata olives.  Creamy buckwheat cereal has been my standby breakfast for much of the winter.

I didn't photograph yesterday morning's breakfast — leftover jicama, cabbage, radish and satsuma salad. What do your typical, or more unusual breakfasts look like?


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Miss E and her little brother

Everyone wants to be part of the new baby team — especially when it involves lying in front of the new gas fireplace!

Shan tofu/chickpea tofu/Burmese tofu

My son and his girlfriend made a large batch of Shan tofu and shared half of it with me. Shan tofu is also known as Burmese tofu, and is made primarily from chickpea flour. That may sound unappealing to you but it tastes great and is very versatile, not to mention easy to make, though it does require some waiting. The tofu they gave me had been made into shan tofu salad with the addition of kaffir lime leaves, toasted sesame seeds, garlic and a few other ingredients. The texture is different, of course from soy-based tofu; I've seen it described as being similar to refrigerated polenta, but that's not quite right. It's firmer than polenta and just ... different. Maybe you just have to try it to know what it's like.

For breakfast over polenta, with olives, tomatoes, pumpkin seeds, hemp hearts.

The recipes used for the tofu and marinade came from Burma: Rivers of Flavor by Naomi Duguid. I searched the Internet hoping to find the exact recipes to share with you, but came away empty-handed, and I can't share copyrighted material. On Amazon, you can "look inside the book" to get a taste for the wonderful recipes and photos, and see the recipe for Shan tofu salad, but not for the tofu itself. The book is not vegetarian or vegan, but substitutes for things like fish sauce and shrimp paste are suggested, and there are so many interesting recipes I think I'd love to have the book in my collection.

With broccoli, tomato and umeboshi-tahini sauce over mung thread noodles.

There seem to be two basic ways to make Shan tofu — the traditional way and the modern way. The traditional way involves soaking chickpea flour for a number of hours in a large quantity of water, removing some of the water, cooking the mixture, then letting it firm up in the refrigerator. The modern method eliminates the soaking period and cooks the flour with a lot less water before the firming-up stage.

Shan tofu added to a mixed-greens, tomato and sunflower seed salad.

I was able to find many links to recipes for the traditional method, and am sharing my favorite — a very clear youtube video. I also found a link to a recipe very similar to the modern one in my son's cookbook, though the cookbook version uses only chickpea flour, water and salt in somewhat smaller quantities than the linked recipe. (It's possible that the oil in the linked recipe is added to help keep the mixture from foaming up when it's cooked.) I think I'd make half a recipe, because even the smaller quantity from the cookbook made a LOT. I haven't tried making this myself yet because I had such a huge amount to use up, but I intend to try it soon, and if I run into any issues I'll update the post. I also haven't tried Shan tofu in its natural state — only marinated in the salad dressing, which I think was a great way to flavor it. It can also be added to a soup or stir-fry, or deep fried into a snack. Here's another recipe that's very simple. Have you tried Shan tofu? 





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Bonzai Aphrodite
If you've never read this post, you should. It's about facing a health crisis as a vegan. We've all read about ex-vegans who have stopped being vegan because of a health issue. This is a story of pursuing medical help with failing health with determination and courage, while remaining vegan.