Hollandaise!

Just wanted to share a picture of my yummy breakfast last week using my vegan hollandaise sauce:

Crepes

This weekend I made crepes for the first time. I doubled the recipe and had a ton left over. We tried them with a variety of fillings: strawberries, blueberries, cream cheese, honey, peanut butter, and mango. I have always had crepes for breakfast or dessert, but never for dinner. I have always associated "crepes" with "sweets" - fruity, sugary, chocolatey, syrupy fillings, mostly because that is how I always had them growing up. 

Now combine this desire to try a savory crepe meal with my love for hollandaise sauce. Pure heart attack in rich, creamy, yellow form. I looked up how to make it, and I knew I shouldn't look, but I did: I checked out the nutritional facts. 450 calories?! Nearly 50 grams of fat?! Oh dear Lord. You don't look at nutritional facts when it comes to hollandaise sauce, you just eat it and savor it! So I could not, in good conscience, make it after reading that. But when I decide I want to do something, I can't get it out of my head. I get slightly obsessed when I get a food craving. Example: I made crepes on Saturday. I've been thinking about hollandaise since then and it's now Monday. 

I'm not vegan by any means. But I tend to look at vegan alternatives when making some of my favorite comfort foods. I am dairy-free (98% of the time - I slip sometimes, what can I say?) and I find the vegan recipes are much more experimental. I've learned about more food alternatives through these vegan explorations that I don't think I would have come across in the past.

So here's the link to the recipe. It's a hybrid vegan eggs benedict/florentine. Here's her hollandaise recipe with my replacements in italics. The measurements are still the same.

I followed her directions exactly. It is amazing how much it looks, tastes and feels like hollandaise. I was blown away. Now, I'm sure if you did a taste test side by side, you could totally tell the difference. I mean, you really can't beat a sauce made with egg yolks and butter. Throw some bacon in there and I would die a happy woman. But since I eat hollandaise, say, maybe once or twice a year, it definitely satisfied my craving! 

Vegan Hollandaise Sauce:

3 Tablespoons Earth Balance margarine (Smart Balance Light with Flax)

2 Tablespoons all purpose flour (all purpose unbleached flour)

pinch of turmeric

1 cup unsweetened soy milk (original Almond Milk)

big pinch of cayenne pepper

2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast

juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 Tablespoon vegenaise (Light Canola Mayo)

Salt and pepper to taste