breakfast and groceries

It's always a little surreal the first time each year when you wake up and there's snow on the ground! Today, I woke up, and there was a LOT of snow on the ground -- wet, sloppy, gloppy, slushy snow, and tons of it! The snow has been coming down all day, and it's finally starting to peter off. Yuk!

What to do when you have no plans and the weather is disgusting? Make French toast, of course!

I used the last six slices of sandwich bread we had on hand, dried them out in a warm oven, soaked them in the "Fronch Toast" custard from Vegan with a Vengeance, (to which I added a tablespoon of agave nectar and a half-teaspoon of Penzey's Baking Spice,) and fried them up in a little Earth Balance in my cast iron. Ta-da! An excellent breakfast on a dreary and gross Saturday morning. (We had coffee and clementines, too -- caffeine and vitamins are also requirements!) I would absolutely make this recipe again! The chickpea flour and cornstarch lended a nice thickness to the custard, without the weird "egginess" I associate with traditional French toast. (I am a L/O vegetarian, but really don't care much for eggs, so I don't use them often. Hooray for vegan baking and cooking!)

After breakfast, Dan had a wild idea -- he suggested we go OUT in the slop! So out we went. We walked to the library, took the bus home and dropped off our books, then hopped back on the bus to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. After enjoying some (free!) art for a little over an hour, we walked over to "Peninsula" Malaysian restaurant for a wonderful lunch! After lunch, we walked some more . . . all the way over to the Wedge for our weekly haul! This week's vegan grocery cart:

BREAD:
Rudi's Organic 100% whole wheat sandwich bread
BULK:
local maple syrup
locally-roasted, organic, fair-trade coffee
local, organic rolled oats
GEN MERCH:
Preserve razor refills
HERBS & SPICES:
kava kava root
PACKAGED GROCERY:
organic, vegan Worcestershire sauce
organic canola oil
Good Earth original herbal tea (coupon!)
Lemon Zinger tea (coupon!)
Knudsen's ginger ale spritzer (coupon!)
organic dark chocolate (coupon!)

Why so little in our grocery cart this week? Well . . . 'cause I'm not done with the shopping! Stay tuned for a mystery grocery shopping adventure, happening tomorrow!