Favorite childhood breakfast

I think every family has a few unique food traditions. This was one of my favorite breakfasts when I was a kid. It's simply a bowl of broken up graham crackers with a glass of milk poured over it. If you wait until the last minute to pour your glass of milk over the crackers, you get a great combination of soft and crispy graham crackers.

Graham crackers are made with whole grains. With only 26 g carbohydrate* in a bowl of graham cracker "cereal," this is a great, quick diabetic breakfast.

*includes a glass of unsweetened soy milk

Our Trip: NYC

Dewey has always wanted to go to the U.S. Open, so that's why we chose New York for the first part of our trip. This is Safina, the number-one-ranked woman tennis player at the time of the Open. She has a really unusual and graceful serve. It's a little hard to see, but the tennis ball is about level with the umpire's right hand in this photo.


For some reason, my father always takes a photo out the window of his hotel room on vacations, and I've picked up the habit. If you could see through those trees, you would see the Manhattan Whole Foods. The neighborhood we stayed in was heaven for us. We had dessert almost every night. Every restaurant was organic or local or vegetarian or some combination. And it was a close walk to Moo Shoes, an all-vegan shoe store. (I got these.)


This is the only food photo I took during the entire vacation. But that's OK, because I think this was the best thing I ate. A block from our hotel was an appetizing store that has three different flavors of vegan cream cheese. And really, this was the best vegan cream cheese I've ever had. So fluffy! A pumpernickel bagel (pumpernickel bread is good for the blood sugar) with chive tofu cream cheese.


And here I am standing under the sign for Hair, which was wonderful. I love the crazziness of singing about your biggest secrets at the top of your voice, complete with jazz hands.

Not pictured: the Chabad rabbi who talked Dewey into being the tenth in a minyan in the garment district. I sat upstairs in the "women's gallery" (really, the men sat in the basement and we sat behind the banister upstairs) and had a nice conversation with a little kid about Harry Potter.

Coming up, the DC part of our trip.

Tofu Scramble

August was a busy month! I got married and took a honeymoon to New York City and Washington, DC. And cleaned out my car! (For a frame of reference, I bought my car in December of 2005 and there was still a sheet of protective paper in my trunk from the car dealership. Underneath piles and piles of stuff.) Now I won't feel so guilty about driving around with all that extra weight in my car.



Vegan red velvet wedding cake! I didn't make the cake or take the photo, but I thought y'all would like to see. We got married at a peacock preserve, and somehow ended up with a peacock theme.

And finally, I have a backlog of food that I cooked in August and didn't get around to posting about. There's a bit of a nostalgic theme to the food. Lots of comfort food and foods I associate with certain people and periods of time. I'll break this up into a few posts.



This was the first tofu scramble I ever ate. Tofu scrambles are a vegan staple. They're eaten for breakfast or brunch just like scrambled eggs, though they're not an imitation of scrambled eggs. They are their own, savory dish. But much like scrambled eggs, they are really quick and simple to cook. And a great opportunity to sneak some vegetables into breakfast.

Most tofu scrambles use nutritional yeast (or "nooch") as a base for their savory umami flavor. The one I make most often is from Vegan with a Vengeance, and also include lots of cumin, thyme, and paprika.

But this is a nostalgic scramble. Think back to college. When I still thought tofu was icky and flavorless (it can be if it's not prepared well!). It was my roommate La's turn to choose what we ate for dinner, and I held back any tofu prejudice I had when I tried this. And I really liked it. Bonus points now because it doesn't have any nooch, which isn't always an easy-to-find ingredient.

Because this is a La recipe, there aren't many amounts written down. Just a list of ingredients and a general method. I've given an approximation for what I used in parentheses, but feel free to channel the spirit of La and use whatever amount seems right to you.

Nooch-less Tofu Scramble

14 ounces tofu (1 block firm or extra-firm tofu)
(oil for stir frying)
onion (1, chopped)
red bell pepper (1, chopped)
garlic (1 clove, chopped)
spinach (1/2 package defrosted frozen spinach or a few handfuls fresh)
onion soup mix (1 packet or 2 tablespoons)

Drain tofu. Break into large chunks and squeeze out excess liquids. Stir fry onion and pepper in oil (about 2 minutes on medium heat). Add garlic (for another 30 seconds). Add spinach and tofu. Add onion soup mix. Stir fry until brown (about 8 minutes).

Weddings and Diabetes

Most of the time, I take care of my diabetes on autopilot. I test before I drive (or walk or ride) anywhere. When I walk to the grocery store, I grab some glucose tablets along with my reusable bag. But some activities require a bit more planning. Like tubing down the Brazos River (hint: diabetes supplies can be bungee corded to your inner tube).

I'm getting married in about a week and a half. Besides the usual decisions to make (what will we eat? how will I keep great aunt Martha from fainting in the heat?), I had a few diabetes related questions.

I don't pump, so I didn't need to sew a pump pocket into my wedding dress, but I still needed somewhere to put my supplies. I don't like to let my supplies get out of my hands anywhere I go, so letting someone else hang onto them wasn't going to cut it. There's actually a company that sews custom diabetes bags, including one meant for weddings. But I'm not really a pink and white flowers kind of girl.

So I sewed my own. It's a pretty basic bag, and I used a pattern. But it's definitely the most complicated thing I've ever sewn. Most of my pants need to be hemmed at least four inches, and my house is full of draw string bags that I've sewn. But this thing is lined! And there are round handles. Needless to say, I'm really happy with how it came out.

Pizza

Turns out the second yeasted thing I made wasn't foccacia or challah but pizza. Dewey and I have been making our pizzas using dough balls from Whole Foods up until now. I think we'll be making all of our own pizza crusts from now on because this was one of the best pizzas I've ever had.

The crust recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance as is the pizza sauce. The pizza dough recipe made enough dough for four 6- or 7-inch pizzas, so we froze half of it for another time. Making your own pizza sauce is incredibly easy, especially if you don't mind chunks of tomato or have an immersion blender. (We blend ours. Tomato chunks are on Dewey's avoid-list.)

We each topped our own pizzas. I took this separate-but-equal food opportunity to eat lots of things Dewey won't touch. I topped my pizza with a thinly-sliced heirloom tomato, black olives, artichoke hearts, and pesto. Basil is the one thing I'm growing successfully in my garden.

Bagels!

Recently, my grandmother bought Dewey and me a stand mixer (thanks Barbie!). One of my goals this year is to get more comfortable working with yeast. I've made bagels and pretzels a few times before, but I'm not very confident doing it. So Dewey and I knew exactly what we wanted to make first with the stand mixer's dough hook.



These are some bagels we made earlier this year with the recipe from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. This is the first time that cookbook has let me down. The instructions were both too complicated and not detailed enough. They suggested spritzing the oven with water to create steam, but failed to mention that the
water mixed with the yeast should be warm. They turned out too tough and unusually brown.



But with our new mixer in hand, we tried the recipe from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. And this recipe turned out perfect for us. Crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. And they're nicely browned (but not brown), too. Just perfect.

And this recipe has fewer steps as well. Only one rise instead of two. No fussy water in the oven. And Isa's instructions for shaping the bagels worked out much better for us.

Now I'm excited to try more yeast recipes. I think focaccia is next on my list.

Vegan Frito Pie

Dewey has asked me to make my Texas chili four or five times since I first made it. He brings the leftovers to work for lunch (almost unheard of for him). He even brought a triple batch to work for a potluck and then called me up excitedly to tell me they made great frito pies.

So we had frito pies for dinner the other night. Fritos, Texas chili, chopped white onions, and Ctate's Queso. (The recipe is temporarily offline because they're going to bottle and sell it.)