Interlude: Rescuing a Failed Breakfast

 This will not be one of the "vegan breakfast ideas" I round up for you, because I can't recommend it. Instead, I thought I'd tell a bit of a story.

On Christmas Day--having not been to the grocery store in a month and staying committed to avoiding it until after these dangerous holidays--I had carefully chosen food I could get excited about. I wasn't so much feeling Christmassy as I was trying to give myself a good feeling about being at home alone (again). Well.

For breakfast, I had chosen a recipe for lemon coconut pancakes with a lemon coconut drizzle that looked amazing. (Let me know if I should link it.) Although I had avoided the stores, a neighbor had given me some lemons (she was going out of town), so I had fresh lemons on hand, and everything else was basic pantry stuff--plus it promised to use up a bit of the open can of coconut milk I had in my fridge.

I set out with enthusiasm and smugness and it all went downhill really fast.

I first tried cooking the pancakes in a lightly oiled cast iron skillet, which is generally nonstick anyway and does a brilliant job with pancakes; the pancakes I attempted in that skillet stuck and held on for dear life. So I abandoned that and pulled out my nonstick skillet, which needs replacing, but is still pretty nonstick for now. It was a repeat of the misadventures with the cast iron.

I had now ruined most of the batter and was getting cranky.

I put the little I had left into my tiny waffle iron, which rapidly and mysteriously overflowed as the waffle started to rise, and sent batter running all over my countertop. This made me crankier, but I managed to get one little waffle out of it. And I drizzled it with the beautiful drizzle I'd made, carefully making a nice design...and it melted into the waffle and didn't look like much of anything.

I sighed and gave up at this point and topped it with a sprinkle of lemon zest and toasted coconut and sat down to my one, sad waffle and a Cafix latte. This consisted, in total, of approximately 250 calories, and I was still hungry afterward so I cut up half of my last apple, put a dollop of peanut butter next to it, and decided to try to redeem it all at lunch.

But I always enjoy apple slices and peanut butter so this, and a cup of herbal tea, finished things off pretty well. And I cleaned up and kept going. I'll show you my Christmas lunch (a much better showing, really!) tomorrow.

This is, after all, an authentic journal of my life in food, so I can't pretend everything is always fabulous. It isn't. But even when it isn't, it usually works out.