Slowly but Surely, Short and Sweet

Slowly but surely I'm getting used to "my" new kitchen. I live on the first floor of my new dorm building, which is thankfully the floor where the kitchen is located. Last semester, I didn't have a stove at my dorm. Well, I have one now, and there's no turning back.



Forgive me for getting stuck on things, but I really wanted to try another French toast recipe. And it just so happens that the café/bakery I work for sells homemade French baguettes for $1. Normally I make French toast with whole grain bread, but Isa's "Fronch" Toast (from Vegan with a Vengeance) is a special occasion.



I didn't follow the recipe exactly, so here are the ingredients I did use (scaled down to one serving):

1/2 cup vanilla soymilk
2 tablespoons gluten-free all purpose flour (I used Bob's Red Mill brand)
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon canola oil, divided (for the pan)
5 slices stale French bread, each sliced 1" thick

The recipe calls for chickpea flour, but I already had the gluten-free flour, which contains chickpea flour. It tasted fabulous. I used nooch instead of cornstarch. I substituted ingredients expertly this time, if I do say so myself! I cooked mine in a non-stick pan, so I only needed a spritz of cooking spray and a half teaspoon canola oil for each side of the toast. I served the end product with 2 tablespoons hot agave nectar for dipping (I'm out of maple syrup).

I usually have the most energy to cook in the morning, so I woke up a little earlier to make something a little more special than weekday morning microwave oatmeal:



I won't apologize for how ugly and messy this looks. I don't care - it tasted good! I call it Oatmeal-Carob Pudding, and I ate it as a hot breakfast. The idea is that it's like rice pudding but made with oatmeal; however, it is much thicker and more satisfying than normal oatmeal.



Oatmeal-Carob Pudding
An adaptation of Chocolate Covered Vegan's Oatmeal Raisin Pudding

Serves 1

1 cup cooked quick oats
1 tablespoon agave nectar
2 teaspoons carob powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup vanilla soymilk
3/4 cup bananas, sliced

To make one cup cooked quick oats, microwave 1 cup water and 1/2 cup dry quick oats on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds. Heat all ingredients except vanilla in a pot over medium on the stove. Bring to a boil, then turn down heat, stirring occasionally. Simmer 20 minutes, or until reaching desired thickness. Serve hot in a bowl with 3/4 cup banana slices. (You can also add the banana during cooking and whip it in with the oats to make a super fluffy pudding. I think I prefer this way, as I like hot melty chunks of banana!) Stir in the vanilla extract last - if you cook it, you may not be able to taste it in the final product. You may need to let the pudding cool for a while - it should be very hot!


Moving in another direction, I feel like I have some explaining to do. You may have noticed that I've been doing a lot of breakfast posts. Part of the reason for this is that I am so busy during the school day, but here's the second, more minor reason:





The vegetarian "restaurant" on my university's campus is a sad excuse for a restaurant, and a sad excuse for "vegetarian," but its one redeeming quality is its fresh, homemade pita "chips" and hummus. I didn't try them until the end of last semester, because I always assumed they were made with butter - until I asked. To me, the pita triangles aren't "chips" at all, because I don't think they're crispy enough to classify as chips. But they're served hot, are made with olive oil, and are just plain addicting. The hummus is surprisingly tasty as well, because it's fresh and not store-bought. So I just get a salad at the vegetarian restaurant and have them put some cold tofu on top. The restaurant does have a stir-fry section (which is where the tofu came from), but this place has the "sad excuse" theme going on... And as you can probably guess, their stir-frys are pretty nasty-tasting. I avoid them. But I've been enjoying my meals there this semester, now that I have pitas and hummus to look forward to with my salad.

I'm going to Whole Foods to do some grocery shopping on Saturday, so expect more food from me soon! And this concludes my short and sweet post.