October 28, 2007: Chipotle Maple Tofu Scramble

Despite enjoying an absurdly large cooked breakfast on Saturday, for some reason I got it into my head that it'd be a good idea to cook breakfast for ourselves on Sunday. I'm not sure why I didn't just go back to cereal as usual, but that's hardly the point of this post.

The point of this post is this:

Cindy had bookmarked Vanessa's vegan breakfast recipe and had been waiting for a chance to sample it - my enthusiasm for cooking breakfast was the perfect opportunity. I started the day with a pre-breakfast wander around the Merri Creek Trail and swung by Filou's Patisserie on the way home to grab some bread to accompany our scrambled tofu. We've lived here for over a year now and somehow never bothered to poke our heads into this little bakery sitting on Lygon Street across from the cemetery. It's probably been for the best - it's certainly reduced the amount of delicious pastries we'd otherwise have eaten. Anyway, they provided me with a fresh loaf of roast capsicum and herb bread to bring home with me.

The rest of breakfast turned out to be pretty easy. Vanessa's recipe is quick and easy and results in a frying pan full to overflowing with egg-looking vegan breakfast. My only suggested alteration would be to cut down a little on the chilli - we only put in 3 peppers and a teaspoon of the sauce, but that was still a little on the hot side. Maybe chipotles are less fiery in Brooklyn. Or maybe Vanessa's just tougher than we are. You could certainly see why some peppers are necessary - combining chilli and maple syrup is a fine idea, and one that added a brilliant flavour to our Sunday brekkie. And given it was scrambled tofu and not eggs, I could even convince myself that it was healthy!


Edit 03/06/09: I'm adding the recipe, since vanesscipes has sadly disappeared. Thanks to the anonymous commenter below for pointing us to an archived version!

Chipotle-Maple Tofu Scramble

3 canned chipotle chillis + 1 teaspoon adobo sauce
1/4 cup maple syrup
oil, for frying
500g extra firm tofu
1 green capsicum, diced
2 tomatoes, seeds removed and diced
2 bunches green onions, sliced
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
salt

Use a food processor to blend together the chipotle chillis, adobo sauce and maple syrup.

Heat up a little oil in a frypan. Fry the green capsicum for a couple minutes, then add the tofu, blended chipotle-maple syrup, tomatoes, green onion, turmeric and salt to taste. Stir it with a wooden spoon and smush up the tofu a bit, cooking until it's all hot, tender and any liquid has dried up.