Fried Spaghetti

We got home last night after being frozen out of a short backpacking trip (I have recipes and food info about that trip for you soon), and, as things usually go, we woke up hungry this morning.

I had nothing to make for breakfast, and not even enough soy milk for a bowl of cereal.

While perusing my fridge I saw a small container of leftover penne from last week. Fried spaghetti immediately was on the daily specials menu.

This was almost a breakfast staple in my house as a kid. My husband, however, had never had it before I made it for him. If we had leftover pasta and no more sauce, fried spaghetti was definitely going to be made in the next few days. I suspect my dad often made extra pasta just so he could be sure to have some lonely, leftover, naked pasta to work with.

The great thing about fried spaghetti is you can do anything you want with it. It’s fantastic with onions and green peppers, wonderful with spinach and mushrooms, and is even really good with vegan chorizo, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and a sprinkle of your fav vegan cheese (I like daiya for this). Essentially what you’re doing is making hash browns or home fries with noodles instead of potatoes.

This sad morning, however, the cupboards were bare, and I had mine with ketchup, which is how I suspect I liked it best as a kid.

Here’s the basic method. If you’re fancying yours up, cook things like onions, peppers, and mushrooms before adding the pasta. Add things like spinach after the pasta gets a little crispy.

Heat a little Earth Balance in a cast iron skillet. When it’s all melted add whatever shape pasta you have (spaghetti really is the best, but anything works), and add a little salt and pepper. Cook until the pasta is crunchy and golden in some spots. Enjoy!!

Peanut Butter Caramel Apple Overnight Oats

Holy. Cow. These are awesome. Tastes like a peanut butter caramel apple.

Here’s the recipe for the overnight oats that used the caramelized apples I made and used in the muffins.

You should have enough apples left to make 2 jars of oats.

• 1/2 cup rolled oats (NOT quick oats!!)
• 1 Tbsp. chia seeds
• 1 pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup of soy milk
• about 1/4 cup of caramelized apples and juicy caramely saucy stuff
• 1 Tbsp. peanut butter

Put everything into a mason jar except the peanut butter.

Drop the peanut butter into the jar in little dabs. Basically, you don’t want one clod of PB in oats, so drop it in in little pieces.

Put the lid on and shake shake shake it up.

Put in the fridge overnight, and BOOM. Breakfast.

A theme? And caramelized apples.

As I was eating my dinner of penne and delicious spaghetti sauce my mom made last August and froze, and then forced me to take several containers of because dammit, she had too much sauce in the freezer, I realized I also wanted dessert.  But I also needed to make sure I had breakfast the next day, and damned if I was going to prepare TWO extra items tonight.

And then it dawned on me:  I’ll make one thing and use it for both.  Which turns out is how I do a lot of things:  my lunch is almost always leftovers, I freeze a lot of stuff I make, and if something doesn’t taste good the first time, I mess with it the next day until it does.  I’m thinking that will be a major theme in my mofo this month.

So. . . what did I make for dessert?  Caramelized apple muffins.

And how is that helping me with breakfast?  I used some of the caramelized apples to put together 2 jars of caramelized apple and peanut butter overnight oats.  Sheeeeeeeiiiiit, yes.

Caramelized Apples

• 1/4 cup Earth Balance
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 apples, peeled and sliced thinly.
• a pinch of salt

Melt the EB in a non cast-iron pan over medium-low heat.  Sprinkle in the brown sugar, and stir until it’s all mixed together.

Toss in the sliced apples and give them a stir.  Cook for about 3 minutes until you see the apples releasing a bunch of juice.  Sprinkle on the salt, and cook for another 5 minutes, or until the apples are nice and tender and maybe even browning a little.  Taste one, and if it tastes awesome and amazing and tender, then it’s done.

Caramelized Apple Muffins – makes 6 muffins

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 tsp ground flax
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 3 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup soymilk

Preheat your oven to 350°F and lightly grease a muffin tin.  Whisk together the flour, flax, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients.  Add the dry to the wet and mix with a wooden spoon until just mixed.

Fill 6 muffin tins halfway full with batter.  Drop  about 3 or 4 caramelized apple slices on the top of each batter pile.  Drizzle on a little bit of the saucy juices, and the top with another small scoop of batter.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pans for 5 minutes, and then cool on a wire rack.

These are pretty good!

I’ll let you know how the oats are tomorrow morning.

Veganmofo begins!!!

Welcome to October and the vegan month of food!

Here’s my sad breakfast.