Vegan MoFo Day 1: Vegan Breakfasts

Welcome to Day 1 of Vegan MoFo 2015! Confused? Vegan MoFo is short for Vegan Month of Food. It’s a blogger event where participants are encouraged to blog every day or as often as they can during the month and discover new things or people in the vegan blogging community. For readers, this means a month full of posts from your favourite vegan food bloggers and a chance to discover some new ones. In the past, there have been themes for everyone to use or you could choose your own theme. This year, you can also participate on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or another social media platform using the hastags #vgnmf15 and #veganmofo.

In 2013, I challenged myself to post about tea and tea time foods. I only made it to 7 posts before puttering out.

Strawberry Tea for Vegan Afternoon Tea: Veganized “Empress” Scones and Devonshire Cream

Last year, for Vegan MoFo 2014, I went on a vegan cultured cheese adventure and shared recipes on how to make your own vegan cheeses from scratch based on nuts. Along with the cheese, I also shared what would be my most popular recipe: Simple Homemade French Bread.

Almond Gruyère Cheese. This vegan Gruyère is made with wheat-based rejuvelac as it’s culturing agent.

For Vegan MoFo 2015, I was debating between a Brown Bag Lunch Theme or an improved attempt at vegan Afternoon Tea again but with the knowledge I’ve gained since 2014. However, I learned in July that the organizers have a new format. Instead of every blogger going off on their own theme, they’ve provided a list of topics that everyone is being encouraged to write about. At first, I have to admit that I was a little sad because I had been pretty excited about my themes. However, the variety of writing prompts did seem interesting and I thought it might be a good way to get back into writing. If you’re a regular follower of Mary’s Test Kitchen, you know that my YouTube channel has really dominated my time and it’s pretty obvious that writing has taken a back seat.

With that super long introduction, let’s start with today’s topic: Breakfast!

Veganized lean “pork” and “century egg” congee.

I have two favourite vegan breakfasts and they look almost exactly like my favourite breakfasts from my pre-vegan days: congee and breakfast sandwiches. Not at the same time. Click here if you want to learn more about congee, a traditional breakfast in many Asian countries. In the video below, I show how I usually make breakfast sandwiches.

What I Ate Vegan – with How I Make Vegan Breakfast Sandwiches

This video was originally posted on April 15, 2015

My vegan breakfast sandwiches have 4 main parts or else I don’t feel satisfied. Yes, I’m that picky. First, it must have tofu seasoned with black salt for that eggy flavour. I also like to use nutritional yeast, garlic powder and onion powder but any savory blend of spices will do. While I’ve tried many low-fat or no-fat versions, the fried renditions are my preference. For that reason, I usually reserve these types of breakfast sandwiches for weekends.

One a whole wheat English Muffin: fried tofu patty with breadcrumbs for extra crispness, avocado slices, garlic tomato sauce and Daiya cheddar style shreds.

During my pre-vegan days, the I loved sausage and egg English muffin sandwiches. Now that I no longer want to consume animals, I just switch out the meat for plant-based versions like Yves breakfast patties or a few slices of Oven Roasted Tofurky. Lately, I haven’t been buying these products in an effort to shop more frugally so mushrooms have been my go-to.

On sourdough English muffins: Broiled Whiskey BBQ Mushrooms with fried tofu patty and vegan cheddar shreds.

The third item my ideal vegan breakfast sandwich must include is something cheesy or creamy or both. Some days, I’ll pick a healthy whole food like avocado but more often, I use vegan cheddar. Not a lot is needed so one little bag of Daiya cheddar shreds or a pack of slices will last a month or more. Hint: most vegan cheeses can be frozen for longer term storage.

Sweet BBQ mushrooms, fried tofu patty, Earth Island (Follow Your Heart) melted cheddar, on toasted sandwich bread. So close to perfect but this IS THE WRONG BREAD!

Lastly, my perfect vegan breakfast sandwich must be made with toasted English Muffins. When I have to, I’ll resort to other types of bread, but when given the choice, English Muffins win out every time. They can handle juicy mushrooms and hearty fillings, no matter how high I decide to stack them. Their chewy texture with soft interior and crispy edges are simply a joy to eat.

Some brands of English Muffins contain milk ingredients and additives to breads are often not so easy to decipher on the ingredient list. So when I was looking for vegan-friendly English Muffins I emailed several companies that happened to sell them in my local stores. In this age, I’ve found that it’s fairly easy to get an answer over email. I avoid asking over Twitter as I’ve found replies are often not reliable.

What does your ideal vegan breakfast sandwich or other type of vegan breakfast look like? Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll subscribe to this blog (use the sign up in the sidebar) if you haven’t already and join me as I (attempt to) blog everyday this September for Vegan MoFo 2015! 🙂