It's a Wafflet!

I thought of calling it a Womelet, but it's definitely more waffle than egg.

I have an awesome husband.  He puts up with my crazy foodie whims so well.  For the most part, he'll eat whatever I fix...and if he doesn't like it, he will happily fix his default food - a Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich.

We had been vegan for about a month, following Mama Pea's Pealightful Plans in an attempt to lose some weight.  Mike has been very adamant about sharing that he is not vegan because he has any issues with killing animals for food.  He simply wants to lose weight.  (He stated this loudly in Whole Foods one day.  I was ready for the vegan police to jump out from behind the boxes of tofu and arrest us on the spot!)  Mike has been doing very good with eating vegan and is even sticking with it at work when he makes his own choices for lunch.  I'm so proud. :)

However, he told me that he missed breakfast food - waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs. Well, why didn't you say something sooner? I knew I could come up with some vegan breakfast items! After finding a few recipes online, I created these waffles.

Vegan Waffles
1 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 TBSP baking powder
1/2 TBSP baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 block low-fat silken tofu
1 TBSP unsweetened applesauce
3/4 TBSP apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups water or non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk.)
1 TBSP melted coconut oil (or canola would work)
1 tsp vanilla
1 TBSP agave nectar  (or more, to taste)

How to Make It:
1. Preheat a waffle iron.

2. Mix the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large bowl.

3. Combine the tofu, applesauce, vinegar, water/milk, oil, vanilla, and agave nectar in a blender or food processor until it is smooth.

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to combine.

5.  Spray the waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray.

6.  Pour batter onto waffle iron and spread it out a little bit to cover most of the grid.

7.  Cook according to your iron's directions.  Mine has a little light that comes on when it's done.  I've found that these take longer than typical waffles.  I think it'd due to the protein from the tofu.

8.  Serve warm with Earth Balance margarine or butter, syrup, berries, etc.

OR make it a Wafflet!


These waffles have an eggy texture from the tofu.  I came up with the Wafflet idea last time I made these because I love combining lots of flavors.  The options for your Wafflet are endless.  I made mine using Sunflower Butter (so yummy - found it at Trader Joe's), sliced banana, maple syrup, and unsweetened coconut.  Delicious!

Spread some sunflower butter (almond or peanut would also work great) on 1/2 of your waffle.  Like I said, it's eggy - so, it wrinkles easily.

Slice about 1/2 a banana...

Then, fold the top 1/2 over, like an omelet.
Drizzle with maple syrup and sprinkle with unsweetened coconut.

Enjoy!

My goodness, My Guinness!

When I was in kindergarten, I showed up at school like any other day and suddenly some girl came up and PINCHED me! I was so appalled when she explained that it was OK to pinch people that day because it was St. Patrick's day and people who aren't wearing green get pinched.  *gasp* How could my mom not have informed me of this?? I'd never heard of such a thing.  Poor little Jen got pinched all day...  That was my sad introduction to St. Patrick's Day.

Luckily, since then, I've enjoyed the holiday much more. A few years ago, I was in a bakery and they had these amazing-looking Guinness Chocolate cakes for $50!  I was intrigued, but not willing to shell out the $50 to find out if it was as amazing as it sounded.  I knew I could probably find a recipe and re-create it at home.  So, that year, we had a St. Patrick's day party with some friends and I made the cake.  It was 3-layers of awesomeness.

That's some irish soda bread in the background, hehe...it was yummy too. :)

This year, I've really been into cupcakes. I think they're fun, cute, and I love individual portions. 

When my friend mentioned having another party this year, I was all over dessert. :)  I suggested making the Guinness Chocolate cake into cupcakes - but this year, adding an Irish Cream frosting!  

I found another recipe online for both the cake and frosting and thought I'd give it a go.  I went to purchase the ingredients and had a major internal dilemma.  We've been eating a vegan diet for almost two months now.  I'll get into that in another post - but, I'll just say I'm not super hardcore about it.  So, I had intended to just follow the recipe and have the cupcakes be non-vegan.  However, as I went to buy the butter/eggs/etc., I was like, "Why not make it vegan?"  So, that's what I did.

**EDIT: After reading Caitlin's post at Healthy Tipping Point, I found out that Guinness itself is not vegan.  They use isinglass in the production of it.  *Heaven Forbid*  I'm also skeptical that Irish Cream would pass the vegan test also.  Hmm...  So, NOT vegan...but yummy nonetheless. Hehe... I loved Caitlin's post though.  I'm definitely very lax in my vegetarian/vegan-ness.  I won't go eat a steak, but I do sneak some of Aaron's cheese pizza sometimes; I would eat a s'more with no remorse; and I definitely do not feel guilty for having a Guinness.**

I used Earth Balance instead of butter in the cake recipe and the frosting; Ener-G Egg Replacer...in replace of the eggs, obviously; and So Delicious Coconut Milk plain yogurt in place of sour cream.  I'd never used the coconut milk yogurt before - I was actually pleasantly surprised to find it at Fred Meyer this afternoon.  I tried some by itself and it was really good!

I didn't get any "action shots" of me making the batter - I'm sure those photography skills will come with time. :)  Here is the pan before I put it in the oven.  (Well, actually, that's a lie.  I put it in the oven and then remembered I'd wanted to get a picture of them pre-baked...so, I had to take the pan out, get the shot, and put them back in. Hehe...I'm obviously a newbie food blogger.)

I may or may not have used that measuring cup to eat the remaining batter licked the bowl.

 When the cupcakes came out, I was so bummed that they had all sunk in the middle.  I did some research online and found that it may have been due to too much sugar in the recipe.  (There was more sugar than flour and I found that odd when I was making them.)  It definitely didn't hurt the taste though.  I ate one right out of the oven and they were DELICIOUS!

Once they cooled, I made the irish cream frosting.  By itself, it was amazing...however, I couldn't get the consistency quite right.  I had used a vegan margarine and I'm assuming that was my issue.  I tried refrigerating the frosting for a little while to get it to stiffen back up...but it didn't work.  I went ahead and piped the frosting on using a star tip...but, since the frosting was so soft, it didn't hold the prettiness. :(

My little man didn't mind at all though. As soon as I was trying to photograph the cupcake, he was hovering over it, ready to pounce.  He kept looking at me like I'd gone nuts - taking pictures of cupcakes. Hehe...

Here's a plate of the finished product.  Presentation fail.  I'm so bummed they didn't turn out prettier.  However, they do taste amazing.  I'll just have to get better about adjusting recipes and subbing in vegan alternatives.

The recipe I used was based on the one I found HERE.
I hope you all had a fabulous St. Patrick's Day!  Did you make anything festive??