Vegan Mofo: The Best Breakfast Cookbook

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Jenny

OSG Granola (12)

Day Twelve:  Tell us about your Favourite Cookbook

It probably looks from my posts so far as if I only ever eat out at breakfast time.  Most of the time, of course, we have a normal, quiet breakfast at home, sometimes shop-bought muesli or cereal, but more often something from a cookbook.  The three books I use most often for breakfasts are Oh She Glows, Isa Does It and Salad Samurai and I’ve been struggling to decide which of these three is my favourite.  After long agonising, I’m giving that prize to…

Oh She Glows!

Not only have the recipes been consistently delicious, but I also make them more frequently than the fancier options in Isa Does It or the fruitier ones in Salad Samurai.  Savoury porridge and the nutty granola are two regulars on our breakfast table.

OSG Granola (12)

The granola is nice and easy to make (as long as you can work out your oven settings – our new oven is a bit of a mystery still), and has a lovely combination of oats, nuts and seeds.  I always make it with cranberries and usually serve it with good fruity yoghurt.

Baked Apple Oatmeal (7)

I’ve only had this baked apple oatmeal once, but it was almost like a dessert for breakfast – and I’m always in favour of that!

OSG Scramble Breakfast Plate (5)

The breakfast scramble will never be as good as Dr HH’s scramble, of course, but this is a really nice combination, and lighter than the usual Full English.  It was also my first encounter with avocado on toast, which, as most vegans know, is amazing.

Savoury Oatmeal (4)

And avocado makes another appearance in the savoury porridge, which I also make quite frequently.  This is a great, fast, savoury breakfast.  The real challenge is finding a suitable cracker:  the crunchier, the better.  So far I haven’t found anything in Prague to rival the beauty in the photo, which I used to get from Eighth Day in Manchester.

I’ve finally got myself a copy of Vegan Brunch, so I’m hoping to branch out into the world of omelettes and baked goods as well soon and make breakfast even more exciting.  Any other breakfast cookbooks to recommend?

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Vegan Mofo: Fuel, Manchester

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Jenny

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Day Eleven:  Focus on a Nutrient

When talking about Full English breakfasts, there’s only one nutrient I’m interested in: carbs!

Fuel in Withington is a wonderful meat-free cafe/bar with quirky and fun decor (including the prettiest painted tabletop you’ll ever see) and a lovely, lively atmosphere.  Despite the fact that it’s open all day, I’ve only ever been in for breakfast.  And I’ve been a few times for that.  It’s good.

The full vegan breakfast is £5.70 and consists of a grilled tomato, some fried mushrooms, sweet potato wedges, spicy beans, two sausages, wilted spinach and some toast.  Homemade beans are a really nice touch on a cooked breakfast plate, though these ones are perhaps a smidgen too spicy for me, especially alongside the fiery wedges too.  The vegetarian breakfast includes hash browns, but I think it’s nice to have a twist on that with the wedges.  I’m always rather “meh” towards a grilled tomato, but the mushrooms were good, and the spinach was really nicely cooked. Crucially, the beans were not very juicy, so there was no contamination to worry about.  The toast was nice, but the bread wasn’t remarkable.  Still, it was a good generous portion.

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Alongside the usual hot drinks, Fuel also offers vegan smoothies.  I gambled on the mixed berry and passionfruit and it was so good and refreshing – it certainly cooled me down after the spicy elements of the breakfast!

Speed of service:  we were the first customers (it opens at 10am on the weekend) and it took about 10 minutes to rustle up our breakfasts.  Not bad at all!  4/5

Value for money:  a hearty plate of food for a reasonable price.  I was very satisfied and full after this.  5/5

Quality of Cooking:  the toast got cold a little too quickly, but I appreciate it’s difficult to juggle all the components of a dish like this.  4/5

Creativity:  there are some original elements here, like the spicy beans and wedges.  And some good vegetables as well, with the delicious spinach.  Nicer bread would have been, well, nice, but I can’t really grumble.  4/5

Total:  17/20

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Vegan Mofo: Alchemist Garden, Amsterdam

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Jenny

Amsterdam Alchemist Garden (3)

Day Ten:  Something Blue

The “something blue” here could be the blueberries above. Or it could equally describe my feelings after eating the most disappointing breakfast ever.

During our Easter trip to Amsterdam, we went for what sounded like an exciting raw breakfast at Alchemist Kitchen.  I’m undecided about raw food – the desserts are good, the salads are, of course, packed with flavour, but wouldn’t some things just be better cooked?  I was feeling quite optimistic about breakfast though – foolishly, as it turned out.  We were the only customers at 10:30am, and I have to say on reflection that I’m not surprised it wasn’t jumping (in fairness, it was busy when we passed by that evening, and the pies did look pretty tempting).

Amsterdam Alchemist Garden (1)

We ordered the 12 euro breakfast plate, which promised granola, coconut yoghurt, bread, jam and coconut butter, alongside the tea and smoothie of the day.  We were told when we ordered that there was no granola, so we’d get a fruit salad instead.  Obviously at that point we should have stood up and walked away.  Why didn’t we?!  It’s a question that still haunts me to this day.  But we stuck it out and waited with a sense of impending doom.  The tea arrived very quickly.  We were expecting something fruity or exotic as it was the tea of the day, but in actual fact it was pretty non-descript.  About ten minutes later the smoothie arrived, and we were invited to guess the flavours:  it was apple and cinnamon, and it was the highlight of the meal.  Alas, it was pretty small, and we still had a long wait for food, despite the fact that the cafe was empty (and the food was raw, so it’s not like it needed cooking).  We struggled to eke out our drinks long enough for the food to arrive.

Amsterdam Alchemist Garden (2)

And this was our sad little plate, accompanied by the colourful bowl of fruit up top for us to share.  Whither the bread?  That’s the two dough balls.  They were about the size of ping-pong balls and were quite dense – I wasn’t a fan, though Dr HH said they were the best bit.  In the little ramekins we had some coconut oil (which I thought the best part), and a ‘jelly’ whose flavour we couldn’t quite place.  That big bowl is full of coconut yoghurt and topped with a solitary, unhappy little blueberry.  I love coconut yoghurt, I think it’s luxurious and tropical and everything good.  But this stuff was sour.  It was in desperate need of something to sweeten it.  Even with all the fruit toppled in, it just wasn’t good.

The cafe itself is a nice place – it’s pretty, bright and airy, with a good pile of board games and books.  And the other food did look good.  I just wouldn’t recommend it for breakfast.  Happy Cow Amsterdam has 22 listings for ‘Bagels and Beans’ around the city, and there was one just down the road on Overtoom – I really wish we’d gone there instead.  It’s nice to be adventurous and try something different, but maybe breakfast isn’t the time to gamble:  I’m a much nicer person on a full, happy belly.

 Speed of service:  very slow, considering how empty it was, and also poor pacing:  we scarcely had any drinks left by the time the food arrived.  Considering the only food preparation really should have been chopping the fruit, there wasn’t much of an excuse.  1/5

Value for money:  I could have bought a big pot of yoghurt and some fruit in the supermarket and enjoyed it more.  2/5

Quality of cooking:  obviously there was no cooking involved, but I will comment on the fact that the yoghurt was almost inedibly sour.  And minus points for not even having the key breakfast ingredient:  granola.  If you run out at breakfast the day before, make some more!  2/5

Creativity:  this is hard to judge.  I like the idea of a raw breakfast, and I was excited by the description of the plate before it arrived.  I’ll give it a three just for being different…although it turns out there’s a reason it’s not a classic.  3/5

Total:  8/20

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Vegan Mofo: Mod’s at Thirsty Scholar, Manchester

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Jenny

Vegan Secret Supper 003

Day Nine:  Most Retro Recipe

Spam is retro, isn’t it? I was certainly surprised to see it listed on the breakfast menu at The Thirsty Scholar in Manchester!

The Thirsty Scholar is located under a bridge and looks a bit daunting to a mild-mannered lady like me.  But it is worth venturing in, because the bar staff and Mod, the chef, are all really friendly and helpful, and the portions are gigantic.  It’s not refined, elegant food:  it’s big and greasy and hits the spot.  So while it wasn’t the best breakfast I’ve ever had, it was exactly what I expected, and I will have it again one day when the mood takes me.

It consisted of three toast triangles (one of the best serving sizes we’ve encountered), some mushrooms, roasted tomatoes (boo!), lots of beans, sausages, and spam.  The spam was a bit unnecessary, I thought – it was an extra bit of meat that didn’t really contribute much to the dish.  In fairness, I may just have been underwhelmed because I never tried real spam, so didn’t have much to compare it to.  The menu listed a solitary hash brown amongst the components, so imagine my delight on finding two hiding there under the toast!  They were delicious, as was the black pudding, which costs extra but is hard to resist when it’s available.

We went there on a gorgeous summer day and dined at the picnic tables outside.  The main drawback to Thirsty Scholar is that they don’t start serving breakfast till 1pm on Saturdays.  That’s just lunch, is it not?  I suspect it’s very much intended as hangover food:  the late start, the greasiness.  I imagine it would be very good for that.  For me it will be a rare indulgence.

Speed of service:  There weren’t many people there before us, so service was quick and really friendly.  4/5

Value for money:  Considering how cheap and cheerful the setting is, I feel like it could have been either a bit cheaper or a bit more plentiful (I’m basing this on how massive the helpings are for the burgers, chips and onion rings).  It was £7 for the breakfast, with an extra £1 for black pudding – but we got that £1 back as they were short of sausages and we only got 1 each.  3/5

Quality of cooking:  The mushrooms really let this dish down – there was no seasoning, and when I cut into them, they oozed liquid everywhere.  I would have preferred the black pudding to be sliced up and fried, as Mr HH always serves it nice and crispy when he takes to the kitchen, and it’s sublime.  2/5

Creativity:  The black pudding was a great addition, but the spam didn’t add much at all.  It was pretty much a bog standard fry-up, which is fine if that’s what you’re in the mood for.  2/5

Total:  11/20

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Vegan Mofo: Plevel, Prague

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Jenny

Plevel (1)

UPDATE: this restaurant closed in 2020

Day Eight:  Reach out!  Make a new vegan friend and tell us about it!

When I visited Prague back in May, I popped into Veg Teg for a cake (and very nice it was, too). While I was eating, I got talking to the waitress and she recommended breakfast at Plevel. While she’s not a friend, she was a friendly vegan and links quite nicely to my next cooked breakfast!

There are four breakfast items on the menu in Plevel, but I knew I had to go for this one to add it to my Full English Championship.  Like the breakfast in Dophert, I’m not sure it’s quite as English as it could be – it’s very much the European take on an English breakfast, made healthier with that dollop of coleslaw.  Any Brit will tell you that there’s no need for a healthy element on this dish:  it’s supposed to be unashamedly greasy.  Besides that unnecessary touch, it was a good plate of food.

I always think roasted tomatoes are a bit superfluous when there are already beans on the plate, especially when there’s nothing potato based, as in this case.  Mushrooms, on the other hand, are always welcome, and these were nicely seasoned, which is something I always look out for.  The beans were just normal baked beans, and I dearly wish they hadn’t touched the scramble, but there wasn’t too much contamination.  The scramble was delicious and, once again, really well seasoned.  The sausages were tasty, and different from the usual ones we get in the UK, but a wee bit small.  And the bread was nice, but at risk of sounding greedy:  more, please!

Although this sounds critical, I really enjoyed it and will definitely order it again.  These are just the little tweaks I would make to bring it in line with my own personal ideal breakfast.  Plevel is probably my favourite restaurant in Prague, be it for breakfast, dinner or just a delicious raw cake.  As usual, this was food cooked to a high standard and it was really tasty.

Speed of service:  service is generally quite fast in this place, however busy they are.  When it was very quiet, I barely had to wait at all! 5/5

Value for money:  thanks to the wonderfully cheap standard of living in the Czech Republic, this works out at about £5, which is not too shabby.  4/5

Quality of cooking:  everything was well-prepared, and, most importantly, well-seasoned.  However, I like to be so full I don’t need to eat again until teatime after a Full English, so a bit more in the sausage/potato/bread department would have been nice.  3/5

Creativity:  I suppose the addition of coleslaw is creative, but it’s not the direction I would take an English breakfast in.  Less salad, more potato:  that’s my motto!  3/5

Total:  15/20

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Vegan Mofo: Wai Kika Moo Kau, Brighton

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Jenny

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Day Seven:   Make / eat some thing inspired by a book or film

I’m easily distracted by food when I’m watching TV or films. A prime example is the breakup scene in 500 Days of Summer. Who can concentrate on the drama of the break up when there are pancakes to be had? And who could be such a monster as to break up with their partner over this delicious dish, thus tainting it forever? Fortunately, there was no such drama when I had this stack of vegan pancakes at Wai Kika Moo Kau in Brighton.

This is a little further from my usual stomping ground, and a pleasant change from the standard cooked breakfast.  Back in March I spent a weekend in Brighton for Vegfest, and revisited the charmingly titled Wai Kika Moo Kau for breakfast.  It’s quite a small cafe, and it was packed on this particular morning, due to the increased number of vegans in town.  It’s deservedly popular – we only had breakfast, but the cakes looked phenomenal, and the lunch menu was very tempting too.  Last year we breakfasted there twice, having both the pancakes and the cooked breakfast.  On our return visit we knew we wanted the pancakes.

I make my own pancakes when we want a real treat breakfast, but it’s nice having them without slaving over the oven first (alright, it’s not a huge effort, but making six pancakes one-by-one takes a long time!).  These pancakes are actually very similar to the ones I make:  lovely and thick!  There’s a stack of four, dotted with spread and served with a dish of maple syrup.  The rim of the plate is dusted in cocoa powder and icing sugar, which are lovely for coating the pancakes.  The pancakes are soft, tasty, and plentiful – cutting a wedge from the whole stack is no mean feat, and they certainly leave you feeling full!

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A satisfying breakfast like this doesn’t really require a heavy drink, but I saw a chai shake on the menu and I couldn’t resist.  It was delicious, full of cinnamon and other spices, and really cool and creamy.

The pancakes were only £5.50, which seemed like a real bargain, and it’s such a novelty being able to get vegan pancakes – I can’t think of anywhere in Manchester that serves them, and am constantly on the look out for more.  If you know anywhere to get a good vegan breakfast pancake in Europe, let me know!

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Vegan Mofo: The Best Scramble in the World

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Jenny

Breakfast Scramble (20)

Day Six:  Recreate a restaurant meal

I have eaten tofu scramble as part of almost every vegan cooked breakfast I’ve had this year. None of them have lived up to the scramble Mr HH cooks up for me on those rare occasions that he takes to the kitchen. And who better to tell you about it than the man himself? I shall be anxiously looking over his shoulder, checking his grammar and making sure he doesn’t say anything mean about me.

Harp's Breakfast Scramble (22)

Hallo!

I’ll start by addressing the wild inaccuracies in that introduction.  First of all, it’s Dr HH, not Mr.  I also resent the implication that I rarely get in the kitchen, I must cook at least 12 times a year!  One thing in that introduction is certainly true though… my grammar will probably need a checking over to meet the high standards of Ms HH.

On to the main event, keep on reading and you’ll find all the instructions you need to add a real dash of middle class to your breakfast.

The Best Scramble in the World

Serves 2 people as part of a cooked breakfast, with about 4 portions of leftovers

Ingredients:

olive oil for frying

2 onions, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped

400g of closed cup mushrooms (chestnut if you’re looking to ratchet up the middle class wow factor), sliced

a generous handful of olives, whatever variety you have

a hearty block of tofu

200g of spinach

100g of baby plum tomatoes (cherry tomatoes if you wish to turn down the middle class wow factor), halved

a handful of basil leaves

Method:

0.  The first step towards a good scramble is choosing the right music.  My personal preference is a little bit of Planet Rock Radio but that’s not quite so easy to get since I’ve been separated from my digital radio.

Breakfast Scramble (1)

  1.  Heat the oil and fry the onions until soft.

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2. Add the mushrooms and continue to cook over medium heat.

Harp's Breakfast Scramble (6)

3.  Sprinkle in the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.

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4. Sling in the olives and keep on cookin’.

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5.  Drain the tofu and crumble it into a sieve to get rid of any excess water and then throw it in the pan.  I find this a good time to start adding some salt and pepper, season to your preferred taste.

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6.  Add the spinach a generous handful at a time and cook until wilted.

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7.  Pop in the tomatoes and basil, stir them in and cook for 2-3 minutes to warm through.

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There we have it!  Additional serving suggestions: sausages, hash browns, black pudding and two slices of olive bread toast.  Remember to artfully arrange your plate and use the sausages as a barrier to prevent the juice from the scramble from contaminating anything else.  Or, if you’re a normal person, just put it on the plate however you want.  Dobrou chuť!

Posted in Vegan Mofo, Vegan Recipes | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Vegan Mofo: The Post Box Cafe

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Jenny

Post Box Cafe 1

Day Five:  Best Sandwich Ever

Bagels are the obvious choice for a breakfast sandwich, but I found something a bit different in Chorlton.

This place was not even on my radar until someone commented in the Manchester Vegan Facebook group that this was the best vegan breakfast in the city.  I immediately dropped what I was doing and hunted down the menu online, and was intrigued to see that it was not the typical cooked breakfast.  So off I went to investigate.  The Post Box Cafe is just a couple of minutes from the Chorlton Metrolink stop, so it’s very accessible and I must have walked past it a hundred times without popping in.

The food is very different from the usual breakfast fare:  a toasted ciabatta, spread with hummus, perched atop some leaves, and topped with roasted mushrooms and tomatoes and caramelised onions.  On the side is some sweet chilli sauce.  It was nice…but was it breakfast?  I don’t think salad leaves and chilli sauce belong at the breakfast table.  The other elements are breakfasty enough (toast, those bloody ubiquitous tomatoes, mushrooms and onions), but I felt like this was more of a lunchtime sandwich offering.  I would have it again, but not in the morning.

That said, it was nice to discover a new place, even if there appears to only be one labelled vegan item on the menu.  It was a place that I always thought looked a bit shabby from the outside, but was actually quite charming when you got in – if rather popular with the pensioner crowd.

Post Box Cafe 2

Speed of service:  it was pretty swift, and the place wasn’t too crowded on a workday at 9:30am.  No complaints.  4/5

Value for money:  at £6, I feel this was a bit steep.  How much do you really pay for a tomato, couple of mushrooms and onions and a pot of hummus?  I didn’t feel like any of the ingredients or the components were really special enough to warrant the price tag.  If there were a sausage or some kind of patty that had required more time and ingredients, then it would be justified.  2/5

Quality of cooking:  everything was toasty warm, the vegetables were juicy, it was good.  4/5

Creativity:  it was definitely unique, and I like places that think outside the box and try to put their own stamp on a breakfast – it should be different to what we usually rustle up at home.  I would have liked a few more breakfasty elements though, I suppose.  3/5

Total:  13/20

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Vegan Mofo: Dophert, Amsterdam

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Jenny

Amsterdam Dophert (2)

UPDATE: this restaurant closed in 2019

Day Four:  Tell us about a weird food combo that you love

This one is not so easy for me, as I am not the most adventurous soul with my food combinations. This is primarily because I am not a mixer: I like to eat everything in turn with minimal contamination, as you may have gathered from Wednesday’s bean issues. Also, I don’t usually like to mix sweet and savoury – I can’t even stretch to jam or chocolate spread on toast. So for me, the combination of mayonnaise (well, vegannaise) with breakfast is very much weird and wild.  “Love” is quite the stretch, but I ate it.  Or, tried it.

Keeping the European theme going, this was a breakfast in Amsterdam back in the Easter holidays.  After a fairly miserable breakfast on our first morning in Amsterdam, we needed a win on this day.  Dophert was just around the corner from where we were staying, near Westerpark, so it was ideal for a breakfast stop.  Like the typical English travellers, we were tempted by the English breakfast – none of this foreign muck for us!  And it was a good breakfast, but I would strongly dispute its Englishness.

Amsterdam Dophert (1)

Dophert is all vegan, so I happily ordered the chai latte and was spoiled for choice when it came to milk:  almond, oat or soy.  I went for almond, and it was a decadent and fragrant drink, with a little coconut macaroon on the side.

The food wasn’t far behind.  The menu promised us “white beans in a tomato sauce”.  What we received was very much baked beans – I would be surprised if they weren’t straight from a tin (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that the menu made them sound somewhat fancier).  The tofu scramble was really tasty, with its seitan strips and red onions, and well-seasoned too, but quite dry.  The seitan slices were nice, but a bit disconnected from the rest – I’d have preferred sausages.  We also had a solitary slice of toast, and a pot of mayo, which baffled us Brits somewhat.  Which element of the dish should you eat with the mayo?  We tried a few things, but didn’t really find that it enhanced anything.  And of course, our good friends roasted tomatoes made an appearance.  But not a mushroom in sight – what a waste.

It was a really pleasant start to the day, and infinitely better than breakfast the day before (still to come in Vegan MoFo!):  everything tasted nice, service was fast and we enjoyed ourselves.  However, the food was a little uninspired, and I don’t think I’ll return for breakfast if I go back to Amsterdam (our omni airbnb host recommended the burgers though, so I’d pop in for one of those).

Speed of service:  it got busier while we were there, but service was swift and friendly.  4/5

Value for money:  it was 10.50 each for the English breakfast, which was perhaps a touch too much.  3/5

Quality of cooking:  everything was well seasoned and nice.  Portions were a bit stingy though – that’s not much toast, is it?  3/5

Creativity:  I found it quite a poor interpretation of the English breakfast, with its mayo instead of potatoes and seitan slices instead of sausages.  3/5

Total:  13

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Vegan Mofo: Jus-rol

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Jenny

Breakfast Jusroll (1)

Day Three:  quick, easy and delicious

One of the things I already miss the most about the UK is Jus-rol.  If you are looking for a quick, easy and delicious breakfast, then look no further.  And who would have thought these were vegan?!  I believe there are another couple of vegan varieties, but I can’t tear myself away from my chosen two.  They’re just perfect if you want a fancy breakfast, but don’t really have time to properly go to town.  (Added bonus:  they make the house smell like a bakery!)

The pain au chocolat are lovely and European – be extra decadent and have a hot chocolate on the side!

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Open the packet

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Unroll the dough and tear it into six pieces

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Put a chocolate stick at each end

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And roll it in!

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Brush them with a little non-dairy milk and pop them in the oven

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And that’s it!

And look how easy they are!  No culinary skills necessary here, yet you can feel like quite the domestic goddess.

The cinnamon rolls might be my favourite though.

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Pop the dough out of the tin

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Slice it as evenly as possible

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Bake to perfection

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Whip up some icing

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And decorate

They smell so good, and they’re so deliciously sweet.  They’re a bit fiddlier to make, as you have to judge the size of the slices yourself and get the icing to the right consistency – you can’t do this one in your sleep quite so much.

And there you have it:  quick, easy and delicious!

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