brunch! hashbrowns, and vegan bennies.

I have decided to start cooking brunch for friends on a pretty regular basis; below I posted details of my first foray into this endeavour!

Brunch this weekend consisted of hashbrowns, and some broiled tofu, with spinach and mushrooms, on english muffins, topped with dill-tahini sauce.

YUM!!!!





The tofu, and sauce recipes were both taken from the Veganomicon, and were completely delicious.
The spinach was simply wilted on low heat, and the mushrooms were fried in a pan with a bit of tamari.

HASHBROWNS!!!

Potatoes take a bagillion years to cook in the oven, so I like to speed the process up a bit.

I cut potatoes into bite-sized bits, and boiled them until they seemed like they are not quite done. You know... you can stick a fork in them, and they are kind of soft, but you wouldn't want to eat them yet.

Then!!

I pre-heated the over to 350F, threw the potatoes onto a pan, and coated them in olive oil; I then added a few other things to the mix, but for the life of me, I cannot recall the measurements…

Stuff that I put on the potatoes:

- Nutritional Yeast (lots!)
-a pinch of: cayenne and paprika
-several splashes of tamari
-salt & pepper

Oh shoot... I believe that there were a few more seasonings, but I forget right now, because I didn't write them down while I was making the potatoes.
Once they were thoroughly coated, I threw the potatoes under the broiler for roughly 15 minutes.

They were so delicious.

OM NOM NOM!!!

I like to accompany food that is kind of rich with some sort of fresh veggie, so I grated some carrots and beets on the side.

HURRAY, BRUNCH!!

more potatoes, tofu, roasted veggies, heirloom tomatoes!

I picked up these beauties at the farmers' market this weekend...



I decided that they would have enough flavour to hold their own in a very basic sauce, and I was right! They were so very lovely.

I used about the amount of tomatoes that you see in the photo above, or maybe a handful more.

I cleaned the tomatoes and cut them in half, heated some olive oil and garlic in a pan, and then tossed the tomatoes in.

I simmered them until they were a bit liquid-y, added 1 teaspoon of sugar (they were pretty tart), and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. I then continued to let them simmer on low heat until they reached a more sauce-like consistency.

SO SIMPLE!



The rest of dinner was composed of some roasted mushrooms and zucchini; some leftover "burger" mix (see earlier post), simply pan fried instead of floured into burger form; and some stips of marinated tofu.



Roasting veggies!
Mushrooms were cleaned and rubbed with olive oil before tossing them into the oven preheated to 350F. They stayed in there for about 10 minutes before I added the oiled zucchini chunks to the mix (it takes less time to cook). They probably stayed in for another ten minutes. I don't usually time roasted vegetables, but rather test them periodically to see what's what.

The tofu was the "Marinated Asian Tofu" from the Veganomicon.

The whole thing was sprinkled with fresh cilantro.

All-in-all, pretty delicious dinner.