A generous amount of cinnamon and rye berries were added to my sourdough pancake batter.
Love the texture of the rye berries.
I usually like my pancakes with vegan butter and maple syrup, but I happened to have homemade vegan condensed milk (and I happened to be out of maple syrup!) and decided to go with it.
I was so excited to have breakfast this morning.
The bread turned out (previous post) so good, and I was going to make a toast for my breakfast.
The toast was so good.
And I enjoyed the rest of it too.
As you can see I like big breakfast!
The bread section of our freezer became pretty scarce, and it was time for me to bake some bread.
I try to make different types of bread so that we don’t have to eat the same type of bread for a long period of time.
I haven’t made Shokupan bread for a while, so I decided to make two loaves of Shokupan.
One regular and one with cocoa-cinnamon swirl.
They turned out great.
Soft, fluffy, light, yet perfectly moist.
I think I finally got the flour-water ratio right.
Adding the swirl was a last minute decision.
I added butter, cocoa, and cinnamon, but intentionally avoided sugar.
There is no added sweetness, but this combination was already flavorful.
It was perfect for my breakfast.
The summer heat is slowly going away and bringing a comfortable weather.
I do appreciate it, but I can’t help feeling sad about the summer quickly going away.
This morning we walked to the local farmers market.
I went there for one thing today.
Corn!
We also came home with these beautiful sunflowers!
(Well, my husband bought these for me ❤.)
I love sunflowers, but I think this is the last time to have in our house before the next summer comes.
Sunflowers in September just don’t sound right.
Today’s sourdough pancakes were packed with lemon zest, basil leaves, and corn.
This combination is another one that sounds great in August, but not so much in September for some reason…
This is something I learned from Ms. Ina Garten.
She said “garnish with something that is in the dish.”
I used to watch Food Network a lot.
This tea brand, Tea Forte, is a good one to give as a gift.
We initially received a box as a gift, and then last year I brought an assorted box to work, and everyone loved it.
There are so many interesting flavors, and the pyramid tea bag is unique and pretty.
I bought a bag of avocados, and I somehow forgot about them.
Fortunately, they are ripe, but not overripe.
So now I have to use them quickly.
Naturally, avocado toast was my husband breakfast this morning.
I added some figs and arugula and drizzled balsamic glaze, and I loved how they looked and tasted all together.
Have a great weekend everyone!
This weekend I’ll be my friend’s cat-sitter.
Well, I’ll be feeding her twice a day for two days.
She is such a nice cat, and I always love playing with her.
Avocado toast is one of our favorite breakfast food to eat for brekfast.
Remember the vegan Mozzarella I just made (previous post)?
I thought the “cheese”, tomato, and basil together would be great served on avocado toast.
It looked so good!
I wanted it to keep this simple.
So I just sprinkled Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and crushed red pepper, and drizzled extra virgin olive oil.
Love breakfast like this.
And yes, I had to put the homemade vegan bacon on this plate, too.
Today I didn’t have to go to the office.
So I decided to make lunch for myself and my husband, who is working from home as usual.
I happened to have some potatoes I wanted to use, so I decided to make a “breakfast” plate for lunch.
This is one of my recent vegan find.
This was sold at Costco, and the word “No Dairy” caught my eye.
I got so excited.
It’s creamy but not too thick.
It really tastes just like the Buffalo sauce.
This time I was going to use it as is (without blue cheese dip), so I wanted a little sweetness in it.
So, I added a little agave syrup, and oh my, it was so good!
(My husband suggested that I should just pour agave syrup into the bottle!)
This was before the sauce.
Doesn’t this look good?!
The potatoes were peeled, cut up, and then roasted in the convection oven at 400F.
I don’t use any oil, and it turned out great every time.
Crispy outside and perfectly cooked inside.
I contemplated an air fryer purchase for a long time, but finally I came to the decision that the convection function in my oven works well for what I would want to do with an air fryer.
I think these potatoes are a good example.
The Buffalo potatoes were served with homemade vegan bacon (love this!), scrambled turmeric tofu, spinach-arugula, orange, and grapes.
Who else like breakfast food for non-breakfast?
This was something I made a few weekends ago.
I was in a mood for Danish pastry, but something less sweets-like and more suited for breakfast.
I still had a few red currants from my mother-in-law’s backyard left, so I thought they would be pretty showcased with mango.
These were pretty and delicious.
Loved them with my cup of coffee.
Last time when my friend and I planned brunch at our house, we had to cancel it because she did not fell well.
Well, we re-scheduled and today we go to finally do it.
I usually take a safe route and stick with traditional/basic food when I cook for someone for the first time.
But with this friend I felt I knew her food preference enough, and I was comfortable to be a bit bold about the menu.
I knew she likes Japanese food in general, and she seems to be able to be okay with (and enjoy) many Japanese-unique ingredients (e.g., miso, seaweed).
So I made a menu that features some Japanese flavors and presentation.
On the bottom (carbs) tray you’ll find two types of Onigiri (rice balls).
One was with vegan smoked salmon, capers, and dill.
The other contained homemade vegan meat, Shiso leaves, and sesame.
They were served with roasted Nori seaweed so that the rice balls can be wrapped in the seaweed sheet.
Oh, I also made miso soup, which was served separately.
Zucchini Tsukemono.
Tsukemono is a Japanese style pickles.
Some are close to the pickles you see in the U.S., but others have different flavors.
For instance, this was was marinated in salt, sugar, and sesame oil.
No vinegar.
This zucchini was from my mother-in-law’s backyard.
It was a big zucchini, but I liked that the seeds inside were not obnoxiously big; many large zucchini has such huge seeds, which I do not care for.
On the second (main) tray, you’ll find peanut tofu.
This turned out great!!
The rich peanut flavor goes so well with a bit of wasabi and soy sauce.
The texture was perfect too.
This traditional Japanese braised potato dish was also on the second tray.
These marinated grape tomatoes were sweet, fresh, and a perfect side dish this time of the year.
Pealed grape tomatoes were marinated in a mixture of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and maple syrup/agave overnight.
The top tier is of course for dessert.
Since this was brunch, I didn’t want it to be too sugary.
Having said that, however, a few cookies seemed very appropriate to be on this tary.
These are white sesame cookies and Kinako (roasted soy bean) cookies.
Along with the cookies I also served small nectarine yogurt cups and fresh grapes.
My friend brought me this beautiful bouquet of flowers!!
I was eying on this last time I was at the farmers market, so I was super excited.
The colors are amazing!
She said it’s called Butterfly Weed.
Apparently butterflies are attracted to it.
I didn’t notice until later, but it has such a wonderful fragrant.
A mild vanilla-like very pleasant sweet smell.
This is the individual setting I made for this blog photography.
I wanted to take some pictures this way before my friend arrived (I wanted to focus on us not on food during our time together).
We just each used a large plate to make a one-plate meal, but I thought it would be fun to make a setting like this for the picture anyway.
I’m glad I kept these bamboo leaves in the freezer.
These are great for this type of presentation.
I love girls brunch.
I think it’s good for mental health (lol).
I planned and prepared this for girls brunch.
But then I found out the other girl was not able to make it.
So my husband instead joined me.
I was grateful because I would have been sad if I had to eat all this by myself.
On the middle “main dish” plate you’ll find smoked V-salmon, Shiso V-omelet, and V-bacon.
On the bottom plate were V-cheddar cheese, V-cream cheese, sourdough biscuits, and dark rye bread.
Everything on the middle and the bottom was made homemade.
I was so proud of myself (lol)!
The top “dessert” plate was filled with yogurt and fresh nectarines.
Nectarine is one of my favorite fruits.
These were the first I got for this season, and they were perfectly ripe juicy, and sweet!
This afternoon tea style brunch may look hard to make, but if you plan well and do as much as you can in advance, it’s really not that bad.
And I enjoy this kind of planning and plating anyway.
The smoked V-salmon went so well with the dark rye bread.
Ooops, I almost forgot to show this condiment platter.
The fun part of this afternoon tea style meal is that you can eat a small amount of many different things.
In this case you can mix and match to make your own sandwich anyway you like, which we did.
I showed my husband the “model” sandwiches first, and he did copy me, but after the first round he was definitely going “free-style” (lol).
I was disappointed because my friend could not join me for this brunch, but hey we can always do it another time.
And I was happy because my husband really enjoyed it.
(As always I took so many pictures, and I’m just so appreciative that he always waits patiently (and encourages me to take as many as I want!) until I’m done. ❤)
