Breakfast?

Vegan breakfast seems like a tough one.  Not sure why- after all, simple things liks toast with plant-based margarine and vegemite count both as vegan and as breakfast!  Fat-free vegan breakfast is a little more problematic, no margarine!  And a whole-foods, unprocessed fat-free vegan breakfast can seem a bit bewildering!

If you're like me and don't care what time of day you eat foods- leftover dinner makes great breakfast.  I often am heating up curry at work, or soup, or... when my stomach wakes up and realises it's empty at about 8:30, 9 o'clock.  I love a nice breakfast salad- an Eat to Live staple that had never really occurred to me until I read that book.  

Somehow eating leftover curries and salads for breakfast seems ok at the office, but at home I wish for something a bit more "breakfasty".  Vegan cookbooks are full of delicious looking recipes for french toast, breakfast casseroles, eggless fritatas and so on.  American blogs are chockas with crazy things like "carrot cake oatmeal" and the like-  which are probably delicious, but kind of symbolise the kind of eating mentality I am trying to get away from.  I live in a country where we have never heard of canned pumpkin (which is ubiquitous in many of these recipes)  and most of the "spice mix" concoctions called for in these recipes are a complete mystery to me.  So... what are some practical, healthy vegan breakfasts for the working, harried vegan mum who doesn't feel like leftovers or salad?

- baked beans on rice cakes, toast or alone

- avocado spread on rice cakes, toast or alone

- fruit

- soy yogurt or silken tofu dressed up as yogurt (hints on this magical substance to follow in another post)

- quinoa cooked as porridge:  This requires a tiny bit of forethought if you want it fast, as unflattened quinoa is not the very fastest-cooking of the grains.  Soaking it overnight is rumoured to increase its nutritional superpowers, as well as speeding cooking in the AM.  I eat it with a packet of stolen Splenda and a splash of soy milk.

- millet cooked as porridge:  this is my new favourite thing.

 

as you can see from the crappy plastic bowl, this is not going to be the kind of blog where you get all inspired by our perfect lives and awesome photography skills!  Hopefully you will have an ideas what to have for breakfast though.

Millet is CHEAP.  A kilo was like $3 at the Chinese market.  This morning I added some goji berries (also cheap at the same grocery) and a small pour of red quinoa, because that's how I roll.  Covered with water (a lot of water!  About 3 times as deep as the seeds are in your pan) and simmered until the water was absorbed.  Millet cooked alone has a fluffy texture and light, wheaty flavour like couscous.  However, unlike couscous, which is essentially pasta, millet is a whole grain, and an ancient one at that.  So much more nutritional goodness, cheapness and deliciousness packed into a little seed.  It has not even a HINT of the gritty budgie-cage taste that I secretly expected.

-oatmeal:  of course, good old oatmeal is vegan!  I thik I have been so busy eating all these new-to-me wonderful things that poor old oatmeal has taken a back seat.

- cafe breaky:  At a cafe where we sometimes go, the only vegan breakfast option is a grilled field mushroom, served with cubes of butternut pumpkin and wilted spinach, alongside soursough toast.  I have never made this at home, but you totally could!