French Crepes and Scrambled Tofu

A mother is cooking breakfast for her two young boys one morning, and they begin to argue about who was going to get the first pancake. The mother, in all her maternal wisdom, turns to them and says, "guys you know if Jesus were here, He would say give my brother the first pancake; I can wait." The brothers look at each other and the older finally says to the youngest, "Ian you be Jesus!" Funny but this post isn't about pancakes since those are not on our breakfast menu these days. However, I do have a great crepe recipe for the kiddies to thumb wrestle over.

Hopefully your fast is going great so far. If the meals aren't going so well for you, perhaps you can add a little French cuisine to satisfy your pallet. These crepes are light and refreshing when paired with a sauce made from your favorite fruit. I made them one morning with scrambled tofu. Oh, what a meal! I prefer my crepes with a little crunch around the edges with big chunks of fungi or gala apple sauced and drizzled over the top. Hungry yet? Well let's get started!

French Crepes

1 1/2 cup - Rice milk

1/4 cup - Cashews

1/2 cup - Quaker oats

1/2 cup - Wheat flour

1 tablespoon - Date honey (recipe in earlier post)

1/2 teaspoon - Sea salt

1/2 cup - Silken tofu

Instructions

1. Put all of you ingredients in a food processor and blend for about a minute. The mixture should be creamy smooth. 

2. Pour mixture in a circular pattern in a nonstick skillet that has been preheated over a medium flame. 

3. Cook on the first side about a minute and the other side about 30 seconds after flipping. 

Sauced Apples

3 - Fugi apples

1 1/2 cup - Water 

1 tablespoon - Cornstarch 

Instructions

1. Cut apples into four parts, core and skin. Then cut into smaller chunks.

2. Place chunks in a small pot of water and bring to a boil. 

3. Cut the fire ddow, cover and let simmer for 15 minutes or until apples become soft but not mushy.

4. Spoon some of the juice into a small bowl and add cornstarch.

5. Whisk until there are no lumps. Then stir in with the rest of the sauced apples. 

6. Continue stirring over low heat until it starts to thicken.

Scrambled Tofu

Ingredients 

1 block - Firm tofu

1 tablespoon - Olive oil

1/4 cup - Diced onion

1/4 cup - Diced green bell pepper

1/4 cup - Diced red bell pepper

1 tablespoon - Nutritional yeast 

1 teaspoon - Sea salt

1 tablespoon - Garlic powder

1 tablespoon -  Onion powder

1 tablespoon -  Curry powder

1 tablespoon -  Cumin

1 1/2 teaspoons - Chickenlike seasoning

Instructions 

1. Sauteé onion and bell peppers in olive oil for five minutes.

2. Rinse, pat dry and crumble tofu into skillet with onion and bell peppers.  

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and toss until tofu is well coated. 

4. Continue heating throughout and serve with your crepes!

Garlic Red Pepper Guacamole and Taco Tofu To Write Home About!

If you haven't done so already, try the sofritas bowls at Chipotle. They are so delicious that people who swear they don't know what we vegetarians see in tofu are all over it after the first bite. No this isn't a commercial. I'm just getting to my next Daniel fast dish success. I have to be honest. I am partial to Mexican cuisine, and when I became a vegetarian, some dishes I thought I'd have to say good bye to. But on the brighter side, I still had my salsa and guacamole. During year one Daniel fast, I made classic tomato salsa and mango salsa quite often. I never grew tired of it, but I longed for more of the cuisine I loved. This year I found that I can make great guacamole and enjoy it as much as my cousin Maya's. She would whip up a bowl of guac so fast it would make your piñata spin. Seeing this made me brave my first attempt at making my own guacamole.

Oh, I didn't stop there. Why have guac and no corn chips for dipping or tacos to pair it with? I did my research (as usual) and found recipes to tweak for the fast and my sofritas inspired tacos were born! I made my tortilla shells, chips, taco tofu, and garlic red pepper guacamole for the first time. My kids loved it and were excited to eat the left overs the next day for lunch. I hope you enjoy it as much as they did!

Corn Flower Tortillas (the directions are on the back of the bag, but I'll put them here any way)

Ingredients

2 cups - Corn flower

1 1/3 cup - Water

1/4 teaspoon - Sea salt

Directions

You can either mix dough by hand or use a food processor if you have a dough blade. Since I opted for the food processor, I'll stick to what I know. 

1. Pour corn flower into food processor with dough blade in place.

2. Start the processor and add sea salt and water.

3. Look for moist crumble consistency. Add more water by the teaspoon if you must.

4. When done dough should feel like moist Play Dough. Roll into small palm size ball and sit to the side under a damp cloth.

5. Place ball in the center of a gallon size Ziplock bag. Leaving the bag unzipped so that air can escape, press ball flat with a plate and roll outward from the center with a rolling pin.

6. Your tortilla should be as thin as slice of bologna (that's the only way I can think of to explain it).

7. Peel open the Ziplock bag and insert your hand. Flip the tortilla onto your palm and peel to other side free.

8. Heat your non-stick skillet over medium heat and allow the tortilla to cook for one minute on each side.

For tortilla chips 

1. Place tortillas on a cookie sheet and cut each one in four pieces like pizza slices.

2. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the edges begin to lift.

3. you can sprinkle with salt if you desire.

Garlic Red Pepper Guacamole

Ingredients

1 - Large Red pepper

4 - Large Avocados 

1 - Diced Onion

1/2 cup - Chopped Cilantro 

1 -tablespoon - chopped garlic (in a jar or dice and sauté your own in a bit of extra virgin olive oil)

1/2 teaspoon - Sea Salt

1 tablespoon - Garlic powder (yes more garlic but optional)

1/2 - Lime

Directions

1. Cut red pepper in half and clean out the seeds, membrane and cut the stem out.

2. Line a cookie sheet with foil and smash the halves on the sheet.

3. Heat oven to 350 degrees and put the peppers under the broiler for 15 minutes.

4. Peppers should be chard when removed from the broiler so that the skin can be peeled. Peel pepper and dice.

5. Pit and scoop avocados into a large bowl and mash with a fork.

6. fold in diced red pepper, onion, chopped cilantro, garlic, sea salt and garlic powder. 

7. Squeeze in lime and continue folding careful not to lose the chunky texture.

Sofritas Inspired Taco Filling

Ingredients

1 jar - Fancy Pimento (should contain two peppers)
3 tablespoons - Olive oil

1 cup - Diced Onion

1 block - Super Firm Tofu
1 tablespoon - Cumin powder
1 teaspoon - Oregano
1/2 teaspoon - Sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoon - TAJIN seasoning
1 tablespoon - Nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon - Braggs liquid amino
1 tablespoon - Garlic powder

Directions

1. Drain pimentos, purée in a food processor and set aside.

2. Add olive oil to skillet and heat over medium flame. Then sauté diced onion for five minutes.

3. Drain, rinse and pat dry tofu. Then crumble into skillet.

4. Add pimento purée and the rest of the ingredients.

5. Scramble until well heated and seasonings are spread evenly throughout tofu.

Trail Mix and Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cran-raisin Walnut Cookies for the Soul!

Ever wonder what you or your kids will do when that urge to snack on something hits during the Daniel fast? Me too, which is why I had plenty of fruits, chopped veggies and nuts for them to snack on  whenever they felt the need to do so. But there was just one slight problem. They were also eating the ingredients I needed for our meals. I found my self running to the produce section of the grocery store so often I should have been punching a time clock. This was not good for my gas tank or my pockets. To remedy this I decided to research other Daniel fast snacking alternatives.

First I'll share my easiest fix. Remember those holiday tins filled with assorted shortbread cookies you find at the grocery store or Sam's Club during the Christmas holidays? Good, and I do apologize for mentioning shortbread cookies (dangit, did it again!). Well, you're bound to have one saved to store some trail mix for the kids. If not, a simple gallon size Ziplock bag is cool. I shopped for all my trail mix fixings because I know what bits my boys will pick over, which would leave me with a tin full of the stuff they don't like. I threw together some raisins, sunflower seeds, mixed nuts, Made in Nature cranberries (Ocean Spray cranberries have sugar listed in the ingredients and are not permitted during the Daniel fast) and an extra bag of roasted cashews with sea salt for good measure. I mix it all together and store in a tin. The kids can come in from school and grab a cup full and go.

Now let's get to the cookies. I think back on when mama used to say, "Put that cookie back! You'll spoil your dinner!" Whelp, while we are fasting in my house, I encourage it (eating a cookie, not spoiling your dinner - darn ambiguous pronouns! Any who). Here's a peanut butter and oatmeal cookie recipe that my kids enjoy snacking on between meals. To prepare I peeled and puréed four apples. After a taste test, I chose my sweetest, which were the Fuji. I also had some date honey in the fridge for such occasions. I got the simple recipe online. Just bring a cup of pitted dates to a boil in a cup of water and simmer until they are nice and soft. When they look like they can be mashed, dump the contents of the pot into a food processor. I added some freshly squeezed lemon juice and blended until textured creamy. You can store the mixture in the container the dates came in. I also did the same with a cup of raisins for my cookies. After the raisins were plump from boiling I puréed them with four ripe bananas (you know the ones that turn speckled brown on the outside and the kids no longer want to eat them because they think they're bad; ha, they're going to eat them anyway).

Ingredients:

2 cups - Whole wheat flour
2 cups - Old fashioned Quaker oats
2 teaspoons - Ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon - Ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon - sea salt

1/2 cup - Natural creamy peanut butter
2 cups - Puréed apples
1 cup - Raisin banana purée
2 tablespoons - date honey (optional)
**do it yourself instructions for purées and honey above**

1/2 cup - Raisins
1/2 cup - Dried cranberries (No sugar added)
1/2 cup - Chopped walnuts

Baking Instructions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix whole wheat flour, Quaker oats, cinnamon, ginger and salt in a large bowl.
3. Toss in peanut butter, purées and date honey. Then mix well.
4. Fold in raisin, dried cranberries and chopped walnuts.
5. Scoop desired size scoops onto a cookie sheet and flatten with your fingers.
6. Bake for 12 minutes.
7. Enjoy!

Ready... Set... Fast!

It is that time again for the annual Daniel fast! For some it is the ultimate start to uphold and follow through with those New Year resolutions to lose 20 pounds, and for some of us, the Daniel fast marks a time slotted for deep meditation, prayer and resistance of worldly pleasures to clear our minds and commune with God. However, for my kids it's about the FOOD! Last year was my first time ever doing the Daniel fast. Though I was no stranger to fasting, this was the first fast of this sort that I had done. And not only that, I was attempting to have my entire family fast with me. What a challenge!

Surprisingly, I had so much fun creating meals, following recipes and reinventing our favorite dishes. I loved it so much, I decided to keep a journal of our daily menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Please don't ask where that journal is today. Let's just say I had good intentions…

This year I started bugging family members with numerous picture messages of neatly plated vegan (Daniel fast approved) meals every time I felt I was on to something (and because I refuse to keep and lose another journal). After about the sixth picture text and response for a recipe,  I thought "oh spaghetti squash! Why not BLOG?!" I know it has been five days since the fast has started, but I promise to get you caught up. I'll start by posting some nifty Daniel fast tips I've picked up that helps keep my teen and preteen from tying me up and taking me through the nearest drive-thru with my purse strapped around my neck. Then I'll back track on some of my MVP meals of the day (teen and preteen approved!) that will surely make it to our kitchen table again! So wether you are fasting spiritually or trying to shed a few extra pounds, tune in and see how we're breaking unleavened bread at our house during the days of the Daniel fast!