Breaking the Egg Habit
With a half-billion eggs being recalled because of salmonella contamination, it’s a great time to consider alternatives to eggs.
Apart from food safety concerns, the cruelty of the battery-cage system—which involves at least 95 percent of the chickens that lay eggs in the U.S.—is more than enough reason to avoid eggs.
Happily, there are so many “eggscellent” alternatives, you won’t go hungry. The one to choose depends on what you’re doing.
Isa Chandra Moskowitz, author of such popular books as Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, says of eggs in baking, “like a bad boyfriend, they can be replaced, and with pleasing results.” She offers specific suggestions at her Post Punk Kitchen website.
Isa doesn’t mention it, but soy flour is another simple egg replacer. Just use about a tablespoon of the flour and a quarter-cup extra liquid (soy milk, or whatever other liquid you’re using in the recipe) for each egg you’re replacing. One caution: The raw soy flour can cause an unpleasant taste in cookie or cake batter. But never fear, the off taste completely disappears once the dish is baked.
There’s even a mix for making vegan meringue from Angel Food of New Zealand, which is available through mail-order sources in the U.S. I haven’t tried it, but it has received good reviews online.
For breakfast, scrambled tofu is almost as much of a cliché as scrambled eggs. You can find dozens, perhaps hundreds of recipes for it. Isa has a good one. Another great source for breakfast recipes is Chooseveg.com, a project of the group Mercy for Animals. It has at least three scrambled-tofu recipes, plus recipes for “eggs” Benedict; French toast, crepes, and other delicacies you might imagine require eggs. After breakfast, explore the rest of the Chooseveg.com site for more egg, dairy and meat-free ideas.
My personal breakfast favorite is banana pancakes. Add more spice than the recipe calls for, top them with blueberries and a side of vegetarian sausage … breakfast of champions! (They’re even better if you have leftovers and reheat them.)
This post is getting long, and it could go much longer because there are so many delicious alternatives. For lunch, maybe you like egg salad sandwich? ChooseVeg.com has a simple recipe. Maybe for supper you fancy Caesar salad? It’s no problem to make the dressing without eggs (or anchovies)— Beautiful Vegan offers one version—and there are many others.
