The Breakfast Mystery

 I found breakfast to be the trickiest meal of the day. I was so used to eating the same thing every day, such as muesli and yoghurt and instant oats, because it was easy and I didn't have to think about it much. Now with my yeast intolerance I could no longer eat ready-made cereals and I also needed to eat something different every day.

In the first week I was really clueless (this was even before I had found out about low GI foods). I made things like rice pudding (with soya or rice milk of course), maize pap and potato cakes with tomato and onion relish. These were generally high GI meals (although the things like soya milk and the tomato and onion did lower the GI) but, I was still feeling shaky and got hungry quickly.

Dr Davidson pointed me in the right direction and then I was A for away.

She introduced me to scrambled tofu. Now, I had heard horror stories about tofu - and I began to get the feeling that you either loved it or you hated it. I wasn't sure which category I would fall into, but I was interested to find out.

She told me about this restaurant/come shop in Emmarentia, Joburg called Fresh Earth: http://www.freshearth.co.za/, which caters for people with allergies and different diets, such as vegan, and also stocks a variety of healthy and natural foods and products. So, one Saturday morning Dre and I went to try it out.

Of course I had the scrambled tofu, on vegan and wheat-free toast, and Dre had a sandwich packed full of amazing ingredients. We also had smoothies, which are awesome by the way!

Anyway, getting back to the scrambled tofu - it was surprisingly very good. It had the same texture as normal scrambled egg and even had the same colour - the bread was delicious, tasted just like normal bread - I had missed that crunch and texture of toast!

I was so impressed that I bought a block of tofu and decided to recreate it at home. This is my interpretation of scrambled tofu:

Ingredients:
- Tofu (a hardish block, Fresh Earth has awesome tofu, but be careful because the smoked one contains vinegar, which you should avoid if you have a yeast intolerance. Woolies also stocks tofu, but it's the soft kind and I find the texture a bit wrong for this dish)
- A drop of healthy oil for frying, such as olive, grape seed, sesame
- Onion
- Green pepper
- Turmeric (for the yellow colour - yeast free!)
- Salt and pepper to taste

• Finely dice the onion (if you are cooking for one, only use half an onion)
• Fry in the oil until translucent, add a sprinkle of salt to prevent the onion from burning
• Next, dice some green pepper (only half if you are cooking for one) and add it to the onion, fry until tender
• Crumble some tofu and add it to the pot
• Fry for a few moments
•  Sprinkle the turmeric over the ingredients (not too much because it does have an overpowering taste) and coat the tofu until it takes on a yellow sheen
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Eat it with toast of your choice or I like to have it with baked beans (some baked beans contain gluten). I think the flavour combination is yummy

 

You can make this scrambled tofu with any ingredients. Other examples are tomatoes, spring onion, fresh coriander, olives (not if you have a yeast intolerance). But generally the sky's the limit. Experimenting is the name of the game.

Try this recipe and let me know what you think. Or even take a drive to Fresh Earth and eat it there - I'd love to hear your thoughts!

If you know of any other great food stores like Fresh Earth, I'd be very interested to hear about them too.

Enjoy experimenting :)