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.

Just came home from the Pinkbox event earlier at Aria in BHS Central where I had such an awesome, awesome time. The food was great (lots of vego choices, I tell you. Thank you Aria, for being vego-friendly. I went for seconds for that arugula salad!). When I stepped out of the restaurant, it was quite pouring and there were no cabs in sight, so I decided to walk it. Unfortunately, it was closing time as well so every block in BHS had no cab in sight. Then I remembered! Why not pass by Echostore since I'm there already?

Echostore sells organic and locally-grown toiletries that are environmentally-friendly and animal friendly too. Instead of using plastic bags, they reuse magazine pages and newspapers for their packaging. Not only is it a source for organic bath, body, and baby products, they also have a cafe and a mini-grocery that sells organic fruits and vegetables plus meats.

In my case though, I purchased a no-meat.

I finally found them tofu burgers after eating them from a photoshoot. Thankfully, they told me where to purchase the patties and I found them. I almost resulted to making my own veggie patties despite my lack of patience since ready made ones were expensive, around Php800+ when I canvased. Thankfully, I found a pack of 18 that sells for just Php 325. These burgers are nutty, spicy, and super flavorful, it's hard to believe there's not an ounce of meat in it.

The texture even looks like meat! The patties are a bit small though, so depending on the size of the burger bun, you might need to use two.

In my case, I made an open-faced sandwich using these patties. I ate quite a lot of food at the event earlier but I can't skip meals so I thought I'd keep my dinner light, just to have something in my tummy.

I also didn't want to go full production too, as it was dinnertime, so I thought I'd go light and make this one. Just one piece and I'm good. I first pan-grilled the pattie then chopped it up and spread it on a slice of bread spread with my fake butter. I topped it with mozarella cheese (the real thing, since I still eat cheese). I can either put this back in the griller until the cheese melts and gets all goey or pop it for a couple of minutes in the toaster oven. I chose the latter. It's cheesy and filling but not to the point of bursting!

When I have some time, I'll probably throw in mushrooms, a salsa, and probably a salad on the side. For now, the sweet treat here would be the peach juice on that glass.