Sundays have branded brunch really well, eh? Who came up with this brunch idea anyway? It reeks of bourgeois whimsy. Oh, we want to wake up late, eat a lot and then not have to worry about cooking lunch. Also, we'd like to eat till our guts burst and then sleep till the late afternoon nudges us into some lackadaisical evening activity.
Bourgeois whimsy aside, I must say I do love a good brunch. Tradition and pop-culture have a aesthetic mood board already in place. You're thinking pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, fruits, cheese, and sangria. Luckily for the animals, I am here to state otherwise. You can have brunch without all them animal products and it can be a dizzyingly delicious array of slurp-slurp.
My mother is in town and I invited my childhood friend and her husband to Brunch. I also had my cousin sister Disha visiting from Manipal to dig in too. And there was my faithful life partner Indra and our dogs snooping around the table too. So what, pray, was on the menu?
The first thing I wanted to include was something zesty, fresh, and wholesome. I had a packet of quinoa that had been lying around for months. I cooked that, added chopped cucumber, green peppers, jalapeños, tomato, cooked chickpeas, and avocado. Then I made a cheesy-dressing with nutritional yeast, cashews, peri-peri chili powder, pepper, salt, and a splash of jaggery syrup. I just pored it over the quinoa salad and YUM. Fresh, zesty, and nutritious.
Then we had a grand tofu scramble. Just slice 2 packets of tofu into small squares. On a frying pan I added some onions, chilies, tomatoes and olive oil. Add the tofu cubes and mixed dried herbs (oregano, basil, chili flakes, pepper), 2 teaspoons of garlic powder, and a few squirts of chili sauce. Stir fry for a few more minutes and it's good to go.
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| Scrambled Tofu |
I made a pistachio loaf that came out super spectacular. It went really well with the freshly brewed coffee we made. I used 3/4 cup brown sugar, a squirt of maple syrup, a dash of salt, 1/3 rd cup olive oil, and 3/4th cup soya mylk. I then added 1/2 cup of ground pistachio and cashews into it along with 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder +baking soda, and 1 table spoon of ground flax seeds (which you can omit). I poured in the batter into a loaf tin, and sprinkled 1/4th cup of whole pistachios on top. Bake for 35 min at 180c.
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| Out of the Oven. That Pistachio Loaf. |
Next up was an experiment. My very own vegan 'meatballs'. You'll need vital wheat gluten for this one, it's basically seitan. You take 1.5 cups of vital wheat gluten flour + 1.5 cups of soaked 'soya keema' which you get at any store. Then you mix up the vital wheat gluten with the soaked soya to make a dough. Add garlic powder, soya sauce, chili sauce, pepper, salt and whatever seasoning you wish. Make little balls and toss them in the oven for 25 min at 180 with some olive oil drizzled on top. The result is chewy meaty plant-based spicy meat!
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| vegan meat balls out of the oven |
All I had to do was make a fruit salad with pineapple, pomegranate, and bananas. Thank god for my mother who chopped up the pineapple like a savage. We also had a fresh tomato jalapeno salsa which was just fresh tomato, garlic seasoning, and 2 jalapeños blended with a dash of water and olive oil. Side accompaniments were store-bought hummus, baguette bread, and olives.
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| That's the SPREAD. |
We all drank a bunch of black coffee (with soya mylk and sugar for some) and chatted about high-school and college which was like last century ago.
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| What my plate looked like. |
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| The mother laying out the table |
And that was that people. Vegan brunch can be bad-ass amazing. Start planning your own.
I'll see you guys next week! Keep it real.
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| till next time, pistachio loaf bids you farewell |
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