meansoybean

I used to live a stone’s throw from Aux Vivres, and I spent an insane amount of money there — because when you live on the Plateau it’s easy to be a hipster-doofus who’s too lazy to cook. But now that I live in a very quiet suburb with no natural food stores or veg*n restaurants, I don’t always feel like making the weekend trek to hang out and get brunch.

The Aux Vivres Le Complet is a large plate with tofu scramble, two strips of tempeh bacon, roasted sweet potatoes, salad with dressing, a slice of cornbread and a bit of fruit garnish. For $9.75, it comes with filtered organic fair-trade coffee or chai. I think my favourite parts of this affair are the salad and the chai/coffee. The rest has, admittedly, become a bit bland over the many years I’ve been patronizing this joint. Maybe my palate is just bored of this one… they do have the La Polenta plate, but unless you like a Mexican slant to your brunch — dear God, stay away!

So you want to stay in your cozy jammies and your belly wants food, what do you do? Shuffle to the kitchen and get cooking! I won’t get into the potatoes or salad, as I feel that’s pretty standard, and I’m sure most of you know how to make these things. I usually omit the tempeh bacon, reserving that for special occasions. The most important component is the scramble, and here’s my recipe.

meansoybean’s tofu scramble
Feeds 2 very hungry people

1/2 block of firm or extra-firm tofu, crumbled
1 small onion, diced
1 tomato, diced
4 mushrooms, diced
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat a pan and fry the onion in oil for about 1 minute until translucent, then add mushrooms. Once the mushrooms are nicely browned, add the tomato, tofu and turmeric — stir well. If the scramble is liquidy because of the tomato, simmer until just moist. Salt and pepper to taste.

The beauty of homemade brunch is that it can be as fancy or as ghetto as you need it to be.
Eat your heart out, Aux Vivres!