Sunday 30 August 2015

Vegan banana french toast

I have had a great night of comfort with a documentary on Countdown on the telly while I baked a batch of favourite chocolate tahini biscuits.  For those who didn't grow up with Countdown, it was a legendary tv music show which was where the youth found out what was going on in music back in the 1970s and 1980s.  Not to be confused with the Countdown game show in the UK.  Countdown: Do yourself a favour is such a fun show that fills me with nostalgia.

Yesterday morning we had another comfort - fried bread!  French toast to be more specific.  And if you want me to be really accurate, it was vegan French toast, which probably sounds less of a comfort to those who love their eggs.  I don't love eggs and never ate French toast as a child but have had some good experiences with the vegan variety.  I found it works quite well with homemade sourdough bread.

While we often use up an old banana in pancakes in the morning, it sometimes seems wasteful to make pancakes while we have bread that I have baked.  When Sylvia asked for French toast and we had a manky banana I decided I must be able to use up old banana and 2 day old bread.  There are few recipe ideas that I can't find someone hasn't done before.  And mostly I check out their recipe and then do my own thing.  As I did yesterday.

I had success with a vegan french toast last year which was coated in desiccated coconut.  We had fresh pineapple and so I said to Sylvia that we should pair it with coconut.  She must have remembered and decided we would dip the french bread in coconut before frying.  Unfortunately she is not quite up to caramelising the pineapple in the frypan so the dish wasn't quite as I would have done in an ideal world.  But we were hurrying and it was really nice with pineapple. 

At least they weren't doused in cinnamon.  At one stage I gave Sylvia a half cup to measure some milk into.  She was still focussed on needing more cinnamon and seemed to think I was directing her to add half a cup of cinnamon.  Luckily I realised the communication breakdown before she added too much cinnamon into the measuring cup.

Maybe a little maple syrup drizzled over the top would have been good.  The French toast was not as sweet as I expected given there was a banana in the mixture.  I did have a little of mine with some peanut butter on it which worked.  Seems that we will now have French toast as an alternative for weekends when we have the manky banana in the fruit bowl.

I am sending this vegan french toast to Elizabeth for her No Waste Food Challenge and to Healthy Vegan Fridays #62.

More vegan breakfast ideas on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Banana oat pancakes
Chocolate muesli (granola)
Potato scones
Roasted vegetable tofu scramble
Smoky apple baked beans
Spinach, sundried tomato and chive chickpea scramble
Super smoothie with berries, pear and banana  

Banana  French Toast
Adapted from The Minimalist Baker and Green Gourmet Giraffe
 
1 banana mashed
1 1/4 cups milk
1-3 tsp chia seeds
good sprinkle of cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
Sturdy bread slices, such as sourdough
coconut, to sprinkle (optional)
margarine to fry

Mix banana, milk, chia seeds, cinnamon and vanilla in a shallow dish.  Dip bread into mixture and sprinkle with coconut on both side (if desired).  Heat frypan over medium heat and melt about a tsp of margarine.  Fry bread for 2 to 4 minutes or until golden brown on each side.  Repeat until the mixture is finished.

On the Stereo:
Best of Bowie: David Bowie

20 comments:

  1. Given my ongoing love affair with vegan French toast, this looks delicious. I actually tried your approach with desiccated coconut yesterday :-)

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    1. Thanks Kari - hope the coconut approach worked - it does tend to stick to the frypan but toasted coconut is the bees knees

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  2. Sounds like the perfect breakfast treat! Trying to get lots of chia into my diet and this sounds perfect.

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    1. Thanks Joanne - love a bit of chia in my diet

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  3. Ahh I did wonder how you were going to replace the egg (for a second I thought aquafaba!). I love French toast and sweet is ok with me :)

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    1. Thanks Lorraine - there are so many different alternatives to eggs when it comes to French toast - am sure there must be some aquafaba ones out there

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  4. I do love the combination of coconut and pineapple. Even though there wasn't that caramelisation, I think it's far more important that you and Sylvia are having a great time in the kitchen together xx

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    1. Thanks Charlie - coconut and pineapple is the stuff of tropical islands but yes sometimes family time has to come before perfect meals :-)

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  5. This is awesome! French toast is my fave Sunday breaky! Love that you've added chia seeds. xx

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    1. Thanks Lucy - pancakes are our favourite weekend brunch - but I think Sylvia might like more french toast in our weekends and I could cope with that

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  6. Looks delicious! I have yet to try GF French toast..... Must get round to it!!

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    1. Thanks Kate - you make such lovely breads that I am sure you would make great GF french toast - it might also pep up unsatisfactory GF bread - I was amazed at how good and soft the stale bread tasted when fried in the dipping mixture

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  7. Breakfast synchronicity! I was having a vegan French toast binge this week. I love how there are so many great variants of vegan French toast, and I've never tried bananas as the egg replacer. Can't wait to try that one out.

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    1. Thanks Joey - it was only desperation to use up the banana that made me look to see if others had tried it - I love the sound of your French toast binge!

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  8. Oooh sounds like a perfect Sunday brunch (I think I just said this about another one of your recipes haha ;p). I guess I have brunch on the brain. I'll try and make this gluten-free (should be pretty easy actually).

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    1. Thanks Kimmy - you can never have too many perfect sunday brunch recipes :-) good luck with making some gf french toast

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  9. Love French toast! I forgot to watch the Countdown doco - dang.

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  10. Oooh wow, just spotted this, looks delicious and so simple! Bookmarked for later :D

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  11. Mmm it's just about breakfast time this morning here in the UK. I've got an inkling now for French Toast! Thank you for sharing your lovely recipe with the No Waste Food Challenge!

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  12. This looks so delicious, I definitely can't wait to give it a go! I love French toast and this is a great sub for when eggs aren't on hand.

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