Going Healthy For Brekkie

#12 Fruity, tarty, sweet, and yummy

Pancakes and cereal are happy childhood breakfast memories in my case. In fastfood breakfast, pancakes and sausage are a favorite kiddie treat. Thankfully, with a bit of research, I found healthy alternatives made from scratch rather than store bought and fast food or instant mixes.  Hence, my breakfast for today which is leaving me so full and happy to start the day:

Today, I made pancakes and sausage and did this yogurt dessert made from sliced apples, greek yogurt, and granola. The "sausage" patties are vegan by the way, and are the tofu patties from Echostore, which I have used in sandwiches and pasta.  I just fried them in virgin coconut oil so they're toasty and nice but canola oil or olive oil would do. I'm happy to tell you that the pancakes are made from scratch (no pancake mixes). My makeup artist and health buff friend Jinky introduced me to coconut flour, which can be used to make desserts and easy and healthy pancake recipes. There's an awesome pancake recipe that can be found here using ingredients that could be easily found in our own kitchen cupboard. Where to get coconut flour? There are some in Healthy Options or in Echostore. I used coconut oil to fry the pancakes and added cinnamon, coconut sugar, and nutmeg to flavor it and topped it with a little nutella and sugar-free pancake syrup. The pancakes have a somewhat similar texture to macaroons.

 For this one, I sliced up some apples and put a dollop of low fat Greek yogurt on the center of a tiny plate and sprinkled some cinnamon to it. I placed the sliced apples around and topped the yogurt with homemade granola (yep homemade! Will show you how to make granola soon) and then drizzled it with some local honey. The Greek yogurt is kinda too rich in texture so I added some sweet flavor and crunch with apples and granola. It's like cereal and actually more filling. :) I love the nutty, crunchy granola too. This combo is actually great with smoothie, fresh juice, or just a cup of coffee.

Going Rich For Brekkie

#8 Never Say Sorry to Sinful Breakfast.

Breakfast indeed is the most important part of the day, and I see no reason to scrimp on it. No diet, light, or anything except meat-free for this kitty. I mean, I need all the energy I need - so bring on the carbs and protein. Today, it was carbs and a bit of protein because I had eggs and some (nut-based) milk.

My grandma was the first person who taught me how to make French toast. It's a great way to recycle day-old bread to turn it into something really pretty and yummy. It was all phail for me though before in creating my version of French toast compared to those served in hotels or whenever I eat out. I dunno why she made it so perfectly though, maybe it's skill. It was then in a trip to Bohol where I chatted with the chef at the buffet table who made pancakes and French toast. He told me to cook the toast steadily in low flame and butter (in my case, margarine, although I am allowed butter. I'm just too cheap to purchase butter, so I used margarine, or what I call 'fake butter').

A bit of tweaking too was to include fruits but I fried them a bit first in butter before setting them aside and putting the French toast in. I used strawberries for today but you can use mangoes, bananas, peaches, or pineapple. I might try blueberries sometime and a bit of mango, since mangoes are gonna be in season soon as it's summer!!!!!

I think my breakfast today is a pretty little picture of awesomeness. there's four slices of toast (technically, that's two slices of bread, crusts removed, sliced diagonally) with some fried strawberry slices. Those who find strawberries too tart might like its new flavor fried. The heat brings out the natural sweetness and the butter's nutty saltiness mellows it down. Oh, and what I used to smother the toasties with? no powdered sugar here though. I used Trader Joe's Cookie Butter. I finally got myself a jar after hearing all the reviews about it. I found it, actually quite good. Not really like the one that gives multiple orgasms upon first bite but it   had a nice cinnamony taste that went well with sweet-tarty strawberries and rich buttery toast coated in milk and eggs. For a refreshing drink that says hello world, I had my Hazelnut Banana Smoothie but instead of honey, I added a heaping spoonful of Nutella to sweeten it. Weeeeee!!!!!!! I don't add ice to my smoothie, if you noticed. I think ice just dilutes the awesomeness, which defeats the purpose of me taking in smoothies in the first place.

Yea, I kinda missed writing here. I'll be cooking more vego stuff quite more often now as summer's coming and it's too humid to go outside. I'm also doing more barbecue research for vego barbecues and guess what? I've finally mastered how to perfectly cook shrimp for pasta.

Power Breakfast

#4: Sweet treats, omelette tweaked up. 

More than just bread and some spread, here's what my working breakfast is, with eggs and dairy this time, because the last two I posted were vegan.

Two slices of toasted bread, one spread with Nutella. The other one is supposed to be the companion for my scrambled eggs. Okay fine, I included the yolk here when I beat the eggs and seasoned it with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. While scrambling the egg, I  added some cheese and nuts. Cereal + soy milk because my body can't tolerate milk. Gave a more conscious effort with putting in more protein sources as I need a lot of fuel this week.