Currently viewing the tag: "french toast"
How many times can someone have brunch in a week? With so many delicious brunch options to choose from the great city of Los Angeles, breakfast fare, maximized, made up a good portion of my eats. Today, on my last full day, is no exception. This morning we dined at Real Food Daily, a well-known all-vegan hot spot with three locations in the LA area. We headed to West Hollywood to taste this vegan staple.
Satisfying both of my savory and sweet cravings, I ordered The Weekender: scrambled tofu, onions, tomatoes, cashew jalapeno cheese, tempeh bacon with two slices of french toast and hashbrowns.
While every bite I ate made my taste buds high five each other, it was the French toast that had those buds jumping up and down. Vegan French toast can go wrong in so many ways (too soggy, too thin, too thick that you get plain bread in the center, etc) but this was spot-on. And the eggy-like batter, vanilla soy flaxseed, made the toast’s texture awesome.
For our final dinner in town, we hit up Madeleine Bistro, yet another eatery whose website has sat patiently waiting in my bookmarks for this West coast eating frenzy. The posh, gourmet restaurant was only open on weekends and had limited hours. We made a door-buster reservation and decided quickly on the 4-course sampler.
The first course, a spectacular soup, was a good indication of what was to come. It was a sweet corn bisque, creamy and frothy with seasonal, local corn. Though soup makes for an unexciting picture, believe me that the taste was very unbelievable. My salad course, their beautiful red beet tartare was delectable–a tower of tenderized red beet, a crispy-skinned super-creamy tofu cheese crouton, finely sliced cucumber in a balsamic glace. How gorgeous and delicious.
My beet tartare salad in all its glory. Very large and substancial for a salad course, I might add.
Then came the entree, course 3: Lemon-rosemary seitan, delicate haricot and cream crepes with a side of haricots. The house-made seitan was so tender and flavorful. The crepe was oh-so creamy. I just wished there were a bit more of a variety of veggies inside. It was the perfect portion, helping to leave me enough room for dessert. And dessert, course 4, was the best of all!
This capital-A Amazing ice cream treat gave me everything I needed. It is their Bananas Foster Split, the culmination of housemade components that had me speechless and ready to lap the bananas foster sauce off the plate. The vanilla ice cream was creamy, the hot fudge was the perfect flavor and texture (not simply brown and sweet), and the whipped crème real. No packages. Everything made from scratch. This was an amazing dessert. Thank you, Madeleine, for your high standards. They translate to pure, unadulterated deliciousness.
Goodnight L.A.
Clearly I am on a quest to find more vegan options around my great city. A satisfying spot for each of the varied tastebuds of my tongue. Some refined and steeped in foodie sensibility, others nostalgic and in need of comforting. Carb-heavy comfort. B.A.D., an all-night eatery with a slew of vegan options, most certainly appeased is the latter.
I first visited B.A.D. last year at their Williamsburg, Brooklyn location. The menu has since grown substantially. I stopped in bright and early one more to start the day right with one of their breakfast options. But first I was taken by selection of v-bombs strewn about the space on Avenue A in the East Village. I had to capture them while I waited for my breakfast. Thankfully the sweet waitress let me wander and shoot pictures.
The bad girl behind Bad Girl Bakery is a vegan herself so they do their own in-house baked goods which are mostly vegan, some of which are gluten-free. Let’s take a looksy:
Cookies–oatmeal cherry pecan and chocolate chip.
Brownies. Mmmmm.
Cupcakes. There’s the vanilla with rose icing.
My greasy, carb-y wonder of a breakfast: the Monte Cristo. This delicious way to start the day is like a grilled cheese made with French toast stuffed with veggie ham. Sweet, salty, savory, and satisfying. The homefries were both white and sweet potato. And boy do I appreciate that.
Let’s look again. This is hearty greasy spoon fare. Not for the faint of heart.
As my heart can handle quite a bit, I chose a dessert from the menu… the Chocolate Banana Chimichanga. This scrumptious end to breakfast had banana and chocolate wrapped in a tortilla and deep-fried. It would probably feed two but hey, that’s how I roll. So darn good.
Chocolate. Banana. Chimichanga. Yes!
Next time you are crawling home on Avenue A.. or up at the crack of dawn because your cat was demanding treats, eat the majority of of your daily intake of calories for breakfast at B.A.D. You’ll have the whole day to utilize it!
yells Farmer Ted while dancing.
The key to surviving a heat wave is to get everything you need to do done… fast! Before peak sun. So The Electrician and I hit the Rockville Centre Farmers Market bright and early. It was my first visit to a farmers market on Long Island, not counting farm stands on the East End. It was a small market with not too many vendors. But then again I am used to New York City’s greenmarkets, specifically the pinnacle: The Union Square Greenmarket. The Rockville Centre market had a great tent for local veggies and a nice spot for fruit. Isn’t that all you need? Kinda.
Yay! The berry is in season! I bought 2 pints of the blue stuff, knowing I can bake what I don’t munch on out of box. Stay tuned for blueberry-ish recipes to come. Starting… now!
When temperatures are up, the stove needs to stay off. But the stovetop, that’s another story… Breakfast for dinner is a summer staple. I also needed to use a loaf of huge Farmers Rye. I chose to make a batch of French Toast with blueberry syrup, cooking up the first of my berry stock.
Ah, sweet blueberry flood. Nothing beats an in-season berry–both in taste and in price. What, dear blueberry, is next?
Vegan Divas makes decadent treats for the health-conscious vegan… or the not-so health conscious vegan. The ladies predominantly distribute their goodies at the city’s upper-crust health stores. I nabbed this caramel pecan brownie at Elm Health, the wonderfully stocked space on 7th avenue and 14th street. Packaging is a bit wasteful, sure, but the brownie was rich and moist like a soft fudge.
I have walked by Chinatown’s House of Vegetarian many, many times to get to their sister restaurant Vegetarian Dim Sum House. This time I decided to give it a whirl. Though I have lost my taste for the mock meat and don’t often consider mock meat establishments a worthy option, home or when traveling, it was too hot to think. I got the mock pineapple chicken (bean curd sheets) and an experimental order of fried yam cakes.
B.A.D. Burger, an omni-spot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with great vegan options, serves Breakfast All Day! Yes, they are open 24 hours a day… and deliver 24 hours a day! So my omni-friend can eat an entree of pulled pork with a neon blue raspberry lemonade while I can feast on green-fonted items on their menu: tofu scramble, vegan French toast, an assortment of veggie burgers and veggie dogs. They also can sub wheat-free, vegan pancakes in any of their specialty pancake dishes like strawberry, banana & blueberry swirled pancakes and the two waffle sandwich with a tofu scramble sub. Drool. That’ll be my next dish there.
This time I had their Vegan French Toast. It was 3 slices of eggy-like wet wonderfulness. I appreciated the whole grain flax bread but was turned off by the lack of real maple syrup and Earth Balance. It hit the spot, however. They also have house-made vegan desserts as well as RC on the fountain! The service was hot and cold but there is ample room in there… and it reminds me of Kate’s Joint in a way. Ok, those are all my thoughts. Can’t wait to go back and take a picture, I mean, eat their pancake concoctions.
Julian’s in Providence, Rhode Island has fantastic vegan brunch options. Traveling to another state for veggie dining adds a bit more pressure to the ordering process. There you sit with a long list of delicious-sounding options–sweet ones, savory ones, personal favorites–but you must only have one.
Luckily at Julian’s you can order a half portion of their St. Jamez ‘Benedict’, a tofu benny among the best I have ever had… fried tofu ‘egg’, garlicky spinach, & vegan hollandaise on a soppy saturated piece of Italian bread, and one singular slice of their vegan cinnamon orange French Toast. Both hit the spot perfectly, satiated me fully without being too-too much. Julian’s makes mean vegan versions that illuminate just how lacking New York City is in certain vegan areas.
Like No Udder is the world’s first vegan soft serve truck. The roaming truck offers vanilla, chocolate and vanilla-chocolate twist vegan soft serve with a variety of toppings. The soft serve’s texture is creamy and the color– stark white reminiscent of my childhood fixation: Carvel. I hope Like No Udder adds more toppings. I want to officially request marshmallow sauce and pineapple.
Wildflour is an all-vegan bakery stocked with the works! Sweet and savory scones, cookies, cupcakes, cakes, cinnamon buns, muffins, brownies, bars and breads… the place was a vegan treat heaven! I chose their Red Velvet cupcake.
Besides these gorgeously decorated cupcakes, Wildflour also sells some fantastic sounding juice concoctions like the Avocolada: avocado, coconut water, pineapple, lime and vanilla.
One of the reasons why I was all aboard the Megabus to Providence was Garden Grille. I went their last year and was so impressed by their food. This time was no different. A menu like Garden Grille’s is overwhelming. They have a variety of dishes that appeal to each and every taste bud. For a starter we got the Hearts of Palm cakes with the chickpea chipotle aioli to appease the salty, zesty and wish to dip.
For dinner: the eggplant rollatini: tofu-nut cheese wrapped in tender strips of eggplant on top grilled polenta cakes and a nest of garlicy spinach and drenched in Pomodoro.
With the day off, the list of to-do’s was long and scroll-like, starting with two classes at the gym. I did the pilates stretch and alignment class. Given the early morning hour and Park avenue address, it was me and a studio filled with lively blossomed senior ladies. The instructor played Sinatra and lead us into the Rockette-style formation as we tipped our pilates rings like top hats. It was the best class I’ve ever been to! After, a b-line to Best Buy on 23rd street who had my beloved SLR for the past week for a preventative maintenance tune-up, to Trader Joe’s for lunch fixings for the week and back to Brooklyn, picking up my laundry and finally whipping up breakfast. I made use of the stale ciabatta rolls I picked up over the weekend, dredging them in VwaV‘s Fronch Toast mixture. In the enthusiasm of finally having my camera, as well as daylight in the kitchen, here is the step-by-step.
My kitty Frankenstein relished my daytime presence, reclining in my lap whilst I finally downloaded Easybeats’s Friday On My Mind on my iTunes. This is the half-way point: a breather. There’s much more Monday to do.
Ok, lunch time. Time to help the 2011 January Pantry Turnover. Time to get rid of the bizarre can of vegetarian duck from the Asian grocery store. Packed with a ton of sodium, I went easy on the salt with a heavily spiced curry. Minced ginger, garlic and onion set the stage for teaspoons galore of cumin, cayenne, garam masala and curry powder.
What do you do with a scoop of Millers Bran? You sneak it into chocolate chip cookies, that’s what! I cut the 2 cups of flour like this: 1 cup all-purpose flour, 3/4 whole wheat flour, 1/4 bran; and I cut the sugar like this: 1/2 granulated sugar and 1/2 cup raw cane sugar. Also, before measuring out thick, flowing molasses in your little teaspoon, coat it in canola oil. That’s a tip.
As mentioned previously, this is what’s left of my books, color-coded to the best of my ability. Ain’t it pretty?
1. Watching the butterfly activity around the Electrician‘s butterfly bush.
2. Collecting hugs.
3. Trying to return to baking. Here is a two-layer orange cake with lemon glaze icing. For my Pop’s birthday.
4. Weekending in the Hamptons. That’s an outdoor shower next to the “Love Shack”.
5. Seeing the family.
6. Eating A LOT of pancakes…
…and French Toast.
7. Making videos of my “best of” baking endeavors.
8. De-cluttering.
9. Making tons of lists.
10. And my all time favorite, bothering Frankenstein.
Peace, rest, relaxation and pedicures involving American flags! It’s Fourth of July, Colorado family-style.
Woken up by the dapper feline Kramer, Independence Day started with a deep long meow. It was a good thing too as top on the day’s itinerary was Om Time‘s Firecracker Flow, a strenuous two-hour yoga session in one of Boulder, Colorado’s top reviewed yoga studios. The class started early and required a 40 or so minute drive, plus getting lost time. After days of my daily movements consisting of pressing the gas and brake pedals, my body was all out of whack. The instructor, who had traveled in from Kansas City, spared us no mercy. Her yogi schpeel included many connections to embodying freedom, both in mind and in movement, and celebrated the joy of liberation and independence. Anyway, I barely survived. But in the end, a yoga class was just what the doctor ordered and justified, finally, a hearty meal. 
After the class, which was very challenging, it was time for Boulder’s best vegetarian restaurant, Leaf. Like WaterCourse the day before, I had been to Leaf last time I was in Colorado. This time around we ordered a delicious appetizer: blue corn empenadas stuffed with a butternut squash vegetable medley. The empanadas sat in a delicious pool of Indian-spiced sauce and bright red chili oil. They were fresh, fragrant and knocked on the doors of almost all sides of my tongue. For an entree I had to again choose the vegan French but I will call Freedom Toast! I had had this dish before but this time the portion was nearly doubled! The stack of four thick slices of bread sat in a puddle of soy margarine and berry juice. Only eating half, the dish will make a great breakfast before heading out towards Wyoming tomorrow, where veggie options seem a bit scarce.
Back at Andrea‘s the kids were pitching in on making some sweet 4th of July-inspired desserts for the neighbor’s shin-dig. Little K was doing her part by making sure the food remnants around her mouth were festively colored and matched her blue and white striped shirts. Everyone was excited for night to come and the fireworks to be set off, including me!
After a long morning of working up a huge sweat and then pumping my body full of pure maple syrup during brunch, the ride back from Boulder had me a bit queasy. Couple that with the altitude difference and erratic weather around the Rockies, I needed a shower and some R&R on the sap. After lounging and being entertained by the kids, CP and I finally focused on preparing some goods for Independence Day dinner. We headed to Sunflower Farmers Market for some festive ingredients. The result: grilled Tofurky Kielbasa, grilled red pepper and onion and blue potatoes… with a side of fire crackers.
Nightfall and fireworks time finally! I haven’t smelled that burning after-smell in years. Happy Birthday America!
To the cutest family in Colorado, many thanks for everything! Tomorrow morning we will be heading north to cut through Wyoming and into Utah. Sleep tight, America.
My family had a few extra loaves of Italian bread delivered with our Father’s Day meal a few weekends back. With VwaV‘s Fronch Toast recipe in mind, I gladly rescued a loaf from my father’s characteristic penchant for hasty disposal. This trait, through the years, has had me sifting through garbage bags for my important papers, etc that had been presumed rubbish. It became a bit amusing after a while. Eventually I learned my lesson (Everything of value and importance has its place. And that place is not in the common area.) and have picked up that habit of environmental order, equating it, like my father had, to structured and stress-reduced living… though not to his extreme… yet.
With food, I’m a little different. I see extended life spans, options for reutilizing. I hate to throw food out. So much so that I’d rather pack it in my weekend bags with half-baked ideas about incorporating it (e.g. pitch-black plantains, bushels of mint, dried up oranges) into meals with my boyfriend. (He has no such qualms about throwing away fermenting foods and throws out what I cannot.) I suppose composting will solve all of these peccadilloes when I have the space to do so. Anyway, I took the bread, knowing that if my dad didn’t toss it out when I was there (because I’d certainly object as one of those liberal environmental types), he would dispose of it when I left. So I get to make Fronch Toast, the loaf doesn’t clutter the kitchen and my dad doesn’t have to hear my rant about wasting food. A win-win-win.
Moving on to the Fronch Toast, Isa created the simplest and most delicious recipe for this breakfast staple. The corn starch and soy creamer coats the bread with a nice skin while the chick pea flour (the most wonderful flour ever) creates a moist egginess, for lack of a better word, that is characteristically French toast all the way. Topped with some real maple syrup and Earth Balance and you got yourself an amazing and quick breakfast. Top with berries and powdered sugar and impress all your non-vegan friends. Ah, this is the best afterlife for a loaf of stale Italian bread!
I have been ingesting far more calories than I need these days, in light of my sedentary lifestyle. Weekends of horrendous weather don’t help either. Catching up…
I headed to the East Village’s cramped lil’ Kosher counter staple, B&H Vegetarian Restaurant, after the person who answered the phone earlier told me their veggie burger was vegan. A bit obsessed with my veggie burger field reporting, I was quite disappointed to learn it contained eggs from the informed friendly counter guy who then pointed out the only vegan option in the place, besides soup. Ok, the vegetable soup is below. But wait, back to the counter guy. The next best thing to getting a vegan meal is finding a waiter who knows what’s vegan, declaratively, who saves you an upset stomach. That’s my silver lining. 
So the soup was okay, even though I couldn’t enjoy any bread dipping like my friend across from me did with her stack of soft challah. My entree was just eh. It was veggie chili over brown rice, something I could have made ten times better at home. But B&H isn’t fine dining! And had it not have been for my hope for thorough burger reporting, I wouldn’t have gone in, like I hadn’t during the 17+ years prior of perusing the East Village’s eateries. The vegans and the Kosher folk have some common ground when it comes to food. Especially in the cream cheese department, thank you very much New York City bagel joints. But it would be against spiritual law to mix meat up with all B&H’s dairy however, it has a ton of poultry (egg).
I have sung grand praises of Bone Shakers before. Okay, like a million times before… but I can’t stop. Bone Shakers, In the words of David Cassidy, in fact, while he was still with the Partridge Family – I think I love you. You’re my kind of eatery. And now you have cheddar and sage biscuits?! I… uh.. made cheddar biscuits too (look here). Don’t we have a lot in common?
And here is their delicious French Toast. They do what they do perfectly. Quality from stern to bow. Fresh, thick crusty bread that’s innards are soft and “eggy”, subtle cinnamon, real maple syrup, EB, topped with fresh fruit: an ample portion at a good price served with a smile by gals with beautiful forearm tattoos. My only suggestion starts with a “B” and ends with an “A”. Not Beatlemania but banana!
I did make some things on my own too. Finally perfecting an olive-infused French bread with a mix of whole wheat, dark rye and bread flours, my bread machine did me good. He fizzled and popped; he rattled and knocked; finally he just stopped. I sliced my 2 lb loaf and dipped it in some olive oil and fine fig balsamic vinegar . Ah, I was transported from Olive street to a balcony off the Mediterranean somewhere. 
Having a ton of ripe bananas to use, CandyPenny and I whipped up some of my intestine-scraper muffins with the remains of my neglected pantry. Said bananas, pecans from when I intended to make molasses-pecan rolls, frozen black cherries from when I made the pineapple upside-down cake, golden raisins from when I made the golden raisin semolina bread, and sliced almonds back from when I made my Christmas cookies. If only I could have added the arugula.
Ok, that is probably the silliest blog title I ever published.
Here is a epicure rundown:
Kate’s Joint‘s vegan French toast. Desperately in need of a pad of Earth Balance… if only the waitress could be found.
Oatmeal raisin cookies from my vegan kitchen.
Sura Thai Kitchen‘s pad see ew and virgin rolls. This place replaced Ayurveda Cafe as my in-between work and class dinner spot.
Pagoda Thai Restaurant is a recent Graham Avenue addition in my neighborhood. Though I was disappointed with their pad see ew, their mango and sticky rice was fargin‘ delicious. Lily Thai is where my heart is, however, with the best dumplings in Brooklyn.
Can someone tell Organic Grill to upgrade their Follow Your Heart cheese to Chicago Soydairy Teese? They used to have a really awesome vegan cheddar that was kinda liquidy but perfect in their tofu omelet but then they made the switch to Follow Your Heart. Teese, please?
Pardon my excessive superlatives but Boneshakers makes the best vegan sandwiches in New York City. There, I said it. They also make their own baked goods. Pictured here is the Hill Bomber burger with Teese. Not pictured here is my drool, which coats their menu chalk boards.
Oatmeal raisin cookies from my vegan kitchen.
Sura Thai Kitchen‘s pad see ew and virgin rolls. This place replaced Ayurveda Cafe as my in-between work and class dinner spot.
Pagoda Thai Restaurant is a recent Graham Avenue addition in my neighborhood. Though I was disappointed with their pad see ew, their mango and sticky rice was fargin‘ delicious. Lily Thai is where my heart is, however, with the best dumplings in Brooklyn.
Can someone tell Organic Grill to upgrade their Follow Your Heart cheese to Chicago Soydairy Teese? They used to have a really awesome vegan cheddar that was kinda liquidy but perfect in their tofu omelet but then they made the switch to Follow Your Heart. Teese, please?
Pardon my excessive superlatives but Boneshakers makes the best vegan sandwiches in New York City. There, I said it. They also make their own baked goods. Pictured here is the Hill Bomber burger with Teese. Not pictured here is my drool, which coats their menu chalk boards.
Bliss is a Williamsburg staple. But I am hardly ever there. They have great, hearty and balanced food. Here is their vegan breakfast burrito with chili, vegan sour cream and pico de gallo. Perfecto!
After a terrible morning, my first consoling thought was that of brunch. I was going to treat myself to Counter‘s yummy banana flambé vegan french toast when I realized… I had never made french toast myself! I found a very simple recipe for…
Banana Coconut French Toast
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup soy milk
1/2 tsp sugar
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup soy milk
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Mash the bananas and whisk in the rest. Pour the batter in a shallow pan and dip both sides of a thick, hearty bread. Fry ‘em up on an Earth Balance-d pan. Mine never browned really but no biggie. I crumbled pecans and smothered them with EB and maple syrup. Fantastic!
If that wasn’t enough of a sweet turn of events, it was time to bake my mom’s birthday cupcakes! She and Wok Man actually share a birthday, March 4, leaving tomorrow for traditional Sunday-after champagne and Italian delivery on Long Island. Here are the naked chocolate beauties below, perked up like Spring flowers on this 60 degree day.
Because my mom is that special, and a big fan of my chocolate-chip cookies, she gets a batch of cookies too. If ever there was an veganism ambassador in my family, it’s my cookies. They gobble them up baffled and confused to just how they taste so good. “These are vegan (pronounced vay-gun)?!”
Here the cookies and cupcakes unite to cool.
The cookies are wrapped in my grandma’s vintage fabric and placed inside a red colander, the color of my mom’s new kitchen. (Yay, the pastel yellow Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer is soon to be mine!)
The chocolate cupcakes get their icing and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.
Happy Bithday Mom!
Because my mom is that special, and a big fan of my chocolate-chip cookies, she gets a batch of cookies too. If ever there was an veganism ambassador in my family, it’s my cookies. They gobble them up baffled and confused to just how they taste so good. “These are vegan (pronounced vay-gun)?!”
Here the cookies and cupcakes unite to cool.
The cookies are wrapped in my grandma’s vintage fabric and placed inside a red colander, the color of my mom’s new kitchen. (Yay, the pastel yellow Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer is soon to be mine!)
The chocolate cupcakes get their icing and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.
Happy Bithday Mom!
Vegan Reporting By Location
