veganmofo - breakfast

First day of #veganmofo - Vegan Month of Food! I know that many people across the vegan blogosphere await the return of veganmofo with bated breath. In fact, many folks prepare their themes and even begin writing posts well before the arrival of the month.

This year the mofoers threw a wrench into well-laid plans and changed the rules, shaking things up quite a bit! The narration has changed a bit and now each day comes with its own unique suggestion of what to post.

The first day's suggestion is breakfast. As soon as I saw that, I knew that my first post would be about the breakfast options in my new cookbook, Vegan Bowls (Amazon, B&N).

This is amazingly exciting for me because breakfast/brunch is always the more challenging meal of the day because aside from standard go-to ideas - cereal, pancakes, waffles, bagels, oatmeal, granola, scrambles -  there is not much of a shake-up.

For Vegan Bowls I pulled all the punches and went around the world to bring you unique breakfast bowls - bowls that maybe you haven't come across or ones that we might not think are traditional breakfast fare, yet they nourish people around the globe.

Take, for instance, Ful Medames Breakfast Bowl. This fava bean bowl is a daily breakfast bowl in the Middle East and North Africa. It is a staple breakfast bowl served with pita bread and a quick radish salad. This stuff is addictive!

From Asia comes THIS typical breakfast/brunch meal: Congee.

Congee is a rice porridge that can be as plain as just the rice cooked in water, to something dazzling and complex with the rice cooked in broth and topped with a variety of extras, such as fried tofu, marinated tempeh, scallions, fried garlic slices, scallions and ginger.

Find out how to make this breakfast in under 30 minutes - a dish that normally needs to cook for about an hour.

Back from my homeland, I bring you this Hungarian Breakfast Bowl, complete with a Hungarian scramble, sausage-style mushrooms and roasted tomatoes. Served with some crisp rye toast, you will be in-the-know with these delicious Hungarian breakfast flavors.

Quinoa has been a staple in South America for eons - they knew long before we did the benefits and nutritious qualities of this tiny pseudocereal.

This mildly sweet take on the normally savory quinoa will have you making it again and again for breakfast. I pair quinoa with oranges, nuts, cardamom and pears. These ingredients all harmonize, and when you make it, you'll see why.

From Mexico, I re-create Huevos Rancheros, an egg-based dish with corn tortillas and ranchero sauce. This one is out of this world and I am very proud to say that I have finally (after years!) got it to taste just right.

In all, there are 12 delectable Breakfast Bowls in Vegan Bowls. Want to see the other recipes in this chapter?

I can honestly say that I love them ALL! I can also testify to the fact that breakfast at our house is no longer a dilemna.

Vegan Bowls (Amazon, B&N) will be released September 15 - in the middle of MoFo! A little more than two weeks off! Eeek! Exciting!!