VeganMoFo: Mom’s breakfast casserole

This was a tester from Isa’s brunch book quite a while ago, and we really loved it.

Tonight we had a friend visiting and I was wondering what to cook. She’s actually a perfect food friend. She loves good food and she’s not vegan nor even vegetarian. But she’s got an open mind and is happy to try most things, so she’ll say if she doesn’t like it but it’s good news if she does, because she’ll eat vegan food with just the same open mind as if she’s eating a new type of fish.

Anyway, when I was scouring the fridge and the cupboards I came up with 2 meals – VCON chickpeas romesco with saffron rice and greens, or the brunch book casserole with smoky greens. I love both meals but obviously most of the time if the person you’re cooking isn’t vegan you’re not sure about offering them tofu, tempeh and cheeze sauce in one meal. But my husband insisted that she’d like to try the other dish so I went for it.

Anyway, we all enjoyed it, and afterwards I asked my friend what she thought. She really wasn’t sure – she knew she enjoyed it but wasn’t sure what some of the tastes were. I tried to pin her down and eventually I managed to get her to say that she had no idea tofu could taste like that – it wasn’t like wagamama tofu at all. By the way I poured VCON cheeze sauce over the top, but the book also recommends some vegan cheeses you can use.

I suppose I have 2 points here. The first one is that Isa’s brunch book is brilliant so buy it. The second is never underestimate your friends, and don’t think that they might not like certain foods just because they’re vegan. You end stereotyping people’s tastes just as much as we normally hate them doing about us if you do.

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