Baking for breakfast

On weekend mornings when I don't have to rush out of the door to go to work, I often indulge myself by baking pastries for breakfast. Most pastries on the market are high-fat and high-calorie so I try my best to avoid them, whereas if you make your own you can control what goes into them and make them (slightly) more healthful. My breakfast pastries are usually vegan, contain minimal sugar, and are made from less refined flours such as whole wheat pastry and spelt flours. As a result, they have a denser texture and nuttier taste than conventional pastries, but I like them that way and would recommend you to give them a try.

Being impatient and slow as I am, I use recipes that take at most half an hour to make. My favorites are scones and muffins - you don't need a mixer or any fancy equipment, and they allow for much improvisation so you can use whatever ingredients you have on hand. The recipes I've tried are from my favorite vegan author and blogger Isa Moskowitz's bestselling cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance as well as Nava Atlas's The Vegetarian Family Cookbook. Isa takes an offbeat approach (much like a guerrilla!) to cooking and her recipes are ingeniously inventive, while Nava's are more down-to-earth and suitable for busy family cooks. Nava also makes a conscious effort to make her recipes as healthful as possible, so expect frequent uses of whole wheat flours and fat substitutes such as applesauce in the recipes.

Here are two creations I've been pretty satisfied with: orange raisin scones topped with sunflower seeds and banana chocolate-chip spelt muffins. For me, having freshly baked homemade pastries along with a cup of tea for breakfast is one of the simplest joys of life.

Orange raisin scones topped with sunflower seeds

Banana chocolate-chip spelt muffins

An incredibly easy and yummy vegan cake

So let the real fun begin!

Vegan banana cake with chocolate ganache

My first post on food is about a vegan banana cake that is moist and yummy, easy to prepare, and probably less bad for your health than an usual cake. Like many people who love desserts, I always try to make my creations more healthful, because I know the "everything in moderation" motto is not going to apply and I will probably gobble up an entire cake or a dozen of cookies when they come out fresh of the oven. Although I've been living in the US for a while, I still find most American desserts to be too sweet. I always halve the amount of sugar called for in any dessert recipe, and this cake was no exception.

The cake is based on the Vegan Banana Chocolate Chip Cake recipe from the PBS show Delicious TV Totally Vegetarian. I really like the recipes featured on Delicious TV, which is hosted by Toni Fiore, because most of them are simple yet sophisticated and delicious. Toni's cooking style is Italian for the most part, but she also ventures into world cuisines such as Asian and Mexican, and make them accessible to people who don't have a full pantry of exotic spices and ingredients like myself. Her show is aired on PBS stations nationwide, so check it out if you get a chance!

I omitted the chocolate chips from the cake batter and whipped up instead a chocolate cream cheese frosting from the Fresh Banana Cake recipe in the 3/09 edition of Vegetarian Times. I applied a thin layer of the frosting on the cake and then topped it with fresh slices of banana. Although the cake does not contain eggs, it still has a moist, custard-like texture thanks to the banana in the batter. The smooth and creamy chocolate frosting adds a decadent touch to the cake. If you like banana, you'll appreciate the faint scent of banana when you bite into the cake. I'd imagine the cake to taste even better if it had more time to rest so the flavors could develop. But I was impatient and liked it warm!

Most important of all, the only tools you need to make the cake are a wooden spoon and several mixing bowls. I don't have a mixer and you don't need one. I am pretty slow in measuring out ingredients, but you should be able to prepare the batter and pop it into the oven in less than 20 minutes. The recipe also lends itself to all sorts of variations, say you can mix nuts or shredded coconut into the batter. I think you can substitute the chocolate frosting for peanut butter frosting too. Banana always goes well with peanut butter =)

Why Guerrilla Vegetarian?

Welcome to "Guerrilla Vegetarian," my blog on my vegetarian culinary adventures. After floating the idea of the blog for more than a year and a half, it is finally here!

I am not a complete vegetarian yet, although my diet is more than 90% vegetarian. I choose to eat vegetarian because of health, environmental, and humanitarian reasons, plus it's just delicious! In the Bay area where the quality of produce is superb, I hardly miss meat at all. I love cooking and experimenting with different cuisines, so it's never boring to eat vegetarian because there are millions of ways to prepare vegetarian food.

I like eating out too, and I've found that if you are willing to do some research beforehand, there is often an unexpectedly wide range of vegetarian options in any US city. Exploring vegetarian restaurants is one of my must-dos whenever I travel, and even in the Bay area, I have a long list of places I've yet to try.

So why do I call myself a "guerrilla"? I certainly don't sound like a weapon-toting crook, do I?

My approach to vegetarian eating is "guerrilla" because:

1. I love to try new cuisines, restaurants, recipes, etc. I almost never repeat a recipe unless it's really good.

2. I always seek the best quality AND value. While a bargain-hunter at heart, I'd rather pay more for good-quality organic produce than have a so-so meal at a restaurant.

3. I am an impromptu cook. Except in baking, I rarely follow a recipe word-by-word and measure out ingredients. I enjoy the freedom of improvising and this often gives me the greatest satisfaction.

4. I tend to opt for the offbeat and unconventional. I sample obscure, hole-in-the-wall places as well as ingredients not on the typical dinner plate. Think Jerusalem artichokes or watermelon radishes, not broccoli or green beans.

5. I am an avid researcher and consume food media voraciously. Vegetarian Times, VegNews, NYT Food Section, Bon Appetit, Food Network, Martha Stewart's publications, and multiple food blogs are all my go-to sources of information.

I've much to share with you in the days ahead, and I hope you'll have some fun too when reading my posts. Welcome aboard!