Turkey Sausage Breakfast Gravy - Dairy, Soy Free with Wheat Free Option

  I've done a few different breakfast gravy recipes that were decent, but after a recent trip to Penzeys Spices and finding this breakfast sausage seasoning, our lives have been changed for the better! I now can make turkey breakfast sausage anytime with the ground turkey of my choosing rather than having to use the ultra watery Jenni-O tube of ground turkey sausage we had been relying on. I HIGHLY recommend you pick yourself up some of this seasoning mix. Seriously. Also, using coconut milk instead of almond milk really improved the flavor and made the gravy whiter than the previous versions. To boot, this recipe is a lot simpler in that you make it all in the same skillet without having to remove the meat. This is really good stuff, we had it for breakfast one day and then for dinner two days later because we loved it so much!

Turkey Sausage Breakfast Gravy 

 
1.25 lb lean ground turkey
1 tsp olive oil
1 1/2 Tbl Penzeys Breakfast Sausage Seasoning*
2 Tbl Bisquick, GF Bisquick, or other GF flour of your choice
1 cup unsweetened plain coconut milk, plus more if needed
1/2 tsp sea salt
a few cracks of fresh ground black pepper

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Once oil is hot, add turkey and sausage seasoning. Break meat up with wooden spoon and stir until completely browned, about 5 minutes. Push all of the turkey meat to the back of the skillet, allowing the juices to come to the front. Add the flour to the juices and stir quickly to form a paste. Whisk the coconut milk into the flour paste until there are no lumps, then incorporate the turkey into the flour/milk mixture. If it is very thick, add more coconut milk. Remember that the gravy will thicken slightly as it cools so try to get it just slightly thinner than you'd like. Stir in salt and pepper and taste, adjust seasonings as desired. (For spicier gravy, add a pinch more of sausage seasoning). Serve over hot biscuits or toast.


 * The ingredients are:  salt, sugar, paprika, black pepper, dextrose (a simple sugar), nutmeg, cayenne pepper, sage, and thyme. I do not know the exact amounts of each, but you could try to make your own seasoning (and store in a small mason jar or other air tight container). Here is my best guess at the measurements for an 4-6oz jar:

4 Tbsp salt
4 Tbsp brown sugar
4 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp black pepper
2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less depending on how spicy you want it)
1 tsp sage
1 tsp thyme 
  

Potato and Sausage Breakfast Bake - Wheat/Gluten, Diary, Soy Free

 We needed breakfast and had some left over produce laying around that needed to be used before it went bad (I HATE throwing away money by letting food spoil!), so I threw this together this morning and it was so yummy I had to share!

Potato and Sausage Breakfast Bake

I sprinkled mine with fresh cilantro and ate it with salsa!

1lb ground turkey sausage (We use cheap ol' Jenni-O in a tube)
4 medium russet potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1 inch cubes
1/2 medium white onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 tsp olive oil
6 (or so) white mushrooms, washed and sliced
1 cup Daiya cheese shreds (pepper jack or cheddar)
1/2 tsp salt
4-5 cracks of fresh ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375.
In a skillet heated to medium-high heat, add turkey sausage, onion, and bell pepper. Break up the sausage with a wooden spoon, and cook stirring occasionally until all the sausage is browned and onions are translucent. Drain grease thoroughly.

Add the olive oil to a 3 qt casserole dish and spread it around with a paper towel to evenly coat the bottom. Place potatoes, mushrooms, Daiya, , salt, and sausage/veggie mixture into casserole dish and stir until well mixed. Sprinkle black pepper on top and bake for 40 minutes.

Turn broiler on to  high and broil for 2-5 minutes, until tops of potatoes are browned and crisp.

Great on it's own or with salsa.

Pumpkin Pancakes - Wheat/Gluten, Soy Free and Vegan

  This recipe for pumpkin pancakes came from the most recent issue of Something Special, a magazine for parents of children with special needs (for those of you new to this blog, my 3 year old son who has all these fun food allergies also has a rare chromosomal deletion resulting in intellectual disability). This is one of the few recipes I've ever found that we could follow exactly as written and these were wonderful. They tasted great, and not just for gluten free pancakes!
  Enjoy this yummy fall treat with other mix-ins like chopped nuts, raisins, or even vegan chocolate chips.
Makes approximately 12 5-inch pancakes (and several silver dollar sized pancakes, which my kids love!)

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 cups gluten free all purpose flour (We used Bob's RedMill GF All Purpose)
2 Tbl brown sugar
1 Tbl baking powder
1 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 3/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp ginger and 1/8 tsp ground cloves)
1 tsp salt
egg replacer for one egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 3/4 cup almond milk (or other non dairy milk), we used vanilla flavored
2 Tbl olive oil
Optional Soy Free Earth Balance buttery spread

Preheat a skillet on medium high heat.
Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix all wet ingredients together. Whisk wet ingredients into flour mixture and stir until thick and slightly lumpy.
Pour about 1/4 cup at a time onto hot skillet. Once top of pancakes are no longer shiny (1-3 minutes), flip and cook other side. Spread with a layer of Earth Balance and top with maple syrup.
*Tip* keep finished pancakes warm while you cook the rest, place in an oven heated to 200 degrees.

Peaches and Cream Breakfast Quinoa

I love quinoa, but one thing I've noticed about it is that it doesn't seem to lend itself to sweeter, breakfast-y type applications. Or so I thought! I'm so over toast and turkey sausage and was at a loss as to what to make this morning that didn't involve a bunch of dishes like making pancakes or biscuits and gravy does, when I came across a Martha Stewart recipe for Breakfast Quinoa. Her recipe called for whole milk (can't use) and blueberries (didn't have) so I improvised, added some things, and ended up with a really tasty peaches and cream almost-oatmeal! Of course it did have a quinoa-y taste to it but only slightly and if you are used to that flavor, it's no big deal at all. My husband and kids readily ate this up, Jack even tried very hard to use his spoon (we're still working on that) :) Sorry there is no picture, it looked about as photogenic as oatmeal though which is to say, tasted better than it looked!

Peaches and Cream Breakfast Quinoa

1 1/2 cups quinoa, rinsed
3 cups vanilla almond milk (or other vanilla non-dairy milk of choice)
1 cup frozen peaches, thawed slightly and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
4 Tbl white sugar
1 Tbl brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

Add milk and quinoa to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once simmering, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 15 minutes, or until milk is about 3/4 absorbed. Stir in peaches, sugars, cinnamon, and vanilla and continue to simmer until milk is completely absorbed, about 8 more minutes. (I actually waited to stir the peaches in until the quinoa was completely done so that they would cool it quickly for my impatient little boys!)

Breakfast Sausage Gravy - Dairy, Wheat/Gluten, Soy, Rice Free

  This was an update to my first recipe, but this, my third version, is easier and the absolute best.

 We just moved into our new house, woohoo!!! I still have not found my camera, but I tried my hand at making breakfast gravy without rice flour (original recipe containing rice here) for the first time Sunday morning and it was so good, I had to share the recipe! So just use your imagination... it looked just like the normal sausage gravy you'd get on biscuits and gravy at a restaurant, but not quite as white. And it was delicious! Now I was experimenting so my measurements weren't exact, you'll have to fiddle around to get the right consistency if it's not quite right, either adding more flour or more liquid, but here is a good starting point. Thankfully this stuff is very forgiving.

Sausage Gravy

1 lb turkey breakfast sausage (preferably Jenni-O in a tube cheapo stuff)
3 Tbl Soy Free Earth Balance buttery spread
about 1 cup Bob's Red Mill GF pancake mix
about 1 1/2 cups plain unsweetened non-dairy milk of choice (we used almond)
water, if necessary
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium skillet with high sides, or even in a sauce pan, heat and break up sausage until just browned . If you've used the cheap stuff, there should be a lot of fluid in the pan*. Drain this fluid into a bowl and set aside, continue browning the sausage until you get some nice crispy edges. Remove the sausage onto a plate and set aside. It's ok, in fact encouraged, to leave behind some bits of turkey and any grease.
In the skillet or pan on medium/low heat, melt Earth Balance. Slowly whisk pancake mix flour into the melted butter until it forms a batter/dough that looks thick enough that you could pick it up but not thick enough to roll into a ball or anything. Stir it around to brown in the pan for about 30 seconds.
Have your almond milk ready right by the stove for this next step. Take the fluid from the sausage meat and SLOWLY whisk it into the pan. At this point, the pancake mix and the juices are going to puff up and make some sort of funky looking cake but just keeping breaking it up with the whisk. Immediately start whisking in the almond milk, breaking up any clumps that may have formed. If gravy is too thick at this point, stir in some water. If it is too thin, bring it to a boil and simmer it for a few minutes. It will thicken as it cools also.
Stir the sausage back into the gravy, and add salt and lots of pepper to taste.

*If your sausage meat does not have a lot of excess fluid in it, you probably used better quality stuff, and that's ok! Just skip the step which calls for whisking in the fluid and start whisking in the non-dairy milk. You will probably need more milk or water than called for to get the right consistency but it should be fine.

Vegan Wheat/Gluten Free Cornbread and Milk

This is not so much a recipe as it is another breakfast idea. Cornbread and milk is yet another popular southern thang, as a dessert or breakfast and it's way yummy. On nights my mom made cornbread with dinner my brother Randy and I would eat as little as possible so that later we could crumble the cold cornbread up in a bowl, throw on a heaping scoop of sugar, and drown the whole thing in milk. Mmm! And the leftover cornbread for breakfast the next day is even tastier because it doesn't turn to mush quite as fast. Yum!

Well last night we had a version of Hoppin' John with kale greens and cornbread. We used Bob's Red Mill gluten free cornbread mix with Ener-G egg replacer, 1 1/2 cups of water, and 1/3 cup melted Soy Free Earth Balance buttery spread. Also I prefer to make mine into muffins rather than a big sheet the mix calls for, but that's just me.The cornbread was absolutely delicious while hot with dinner, and it made enough that we had leftovers which worked perfectly for breakfast this morning!

I used vanilla almond milk and a (less than heaping) spoonful of organic non GMO sugar over the crumbled cornbread. The boys loved it and I loved being able to share the familiar treat from my childhood with them in a safe way. :)

French Toast- Vegan, Wheat and Soy Free

Breakfast. What a daunting word when you have multiple food allergies. It seems you can eat almost anything for lunch and dinner, but what's breakfast? Eggs, some sort of pork, a wheat filled bread type substance, and potatoes. Cereal, fruit and yogurt too, but those are not really 'Sunday Breakfast' material.
A few milk, egg, wheat, pork/beef free options:

• grits
• turkey bacon
• wheat free toast (we prefer white rye since we are not gluten free and other wheat free breads contain rice, another of Jack's allergens)
• country potatoes
• wheat free vegan pancakes (Bob's Redmill GF Pancake mix)

But this list is obviously lacking. We used to make wheat free biscuits and dairy free gravy but since losing rice products that hasn't been something we have been able to recreate in a decent way yet. Last night for whatever reason I wondered if there was a vegan way to make french toast. I jumped on the computer and looked it up and sure enough, there are all sorts of variations of this delicious breakfast food. Some included tofu so were off the list, but I found a few that used pureed banana and non-dairy milk, and a few that contained nutritional yeast flakes. I mixed and matched ingredients until I made one I thought would work for us. This mornign we gave it a shot and oh my, this was so good and easy. It does have a slightly banana-y aroma, but it is not distracting. Jack ate 2 WHOLE slices! He normally doesn't even eat one piece of regular toast. Score!!

Vegan and Wheat Free French Toast

8-10 slices vegan wheat free bread (we use Food For Life White Rye)
3 ripe bananas
3/4 cup vanilla almond milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of pumpkin pie spice (optional)
1/2 tsp Nutritional Yest Flakes or a large pinch of salt
2 Tbl Soy Free Earth Balance buttery spread, divided

In a blender or food processor, add bananas, almond milk, spices, vanilla, and yeast flakes. Blend until smooth. Pour the mixture into a pie pan or wide shallow bowl. Heat a large skillet on medium high heat. Add 1/2 Tbl Earth Balance butter to the pan. Once melted, add two slices of bread quickly dipped in the banana mixture and cook about 2-3 minutes on each side. Remove and place on a warmed plate and repeat with remaining butter and slices of bread. Serve with powdered sugar, syrup, and more Earth Balance.

Super Easy Turkey Hash Breakfast (For Dinner!)

  Yesterday was my birthday! Chris and I were planning on leaving the boys with my dad and going out to dinner and a movie, so I thought I'd make something really simple for the boys' dinner. Well I scanned the pantry shelves for awhile and came up with something I thought they would eat and could pick up with their fingers. It turned out to be SO yummy, I had to mentall scold myself to stop 'sampling' it so I'd still be hungry for dinner! This was good for dinner but it would make an excellent breakfast for sure! This recipe is sort of cheating, since I used canned new potatoes. You could make it with fresh potatoes, it would just take a little longer.

Easy Turkey Hash

2 Tbl olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 can diced new potatoes, drained
1 can turkey SPAM, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 cup thawed frozen corn
1 tsp Emeril's Southwest Seasoning (or any seasoning you choose)
S & P to taste

In a learge skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Once hot, add Southwest Seasoning, onions and bell peppers and saute until soft and onion is transparent. Add diced potatoes and corn and mix well, then spread the potatoes in the pan so they are mostly in a single layer. Turn heat down to medium and allow them to sit without stirring for 5 minutes, then stir and spread them flat again, cooking for another 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small skillet over medium heat, fry SPAM cubes, stirring occasionally, until edges are crispy. Mix them into the potato mixture, season with salt and pepper, and enjoy :)

Gluten/Wheat, Dairy, and Egg Free Biscuits and gravy! (updated)

  So breakfast still remains the meal with the least amount of options, but we are working on it! So far we have:

• GFDFEF Pancakes
• Grits
• Turkey bacon
• Certified GF Oatmeal
• GF toast
• Turkey breakfast sausage
• GFDF biscuits

And now...... GRAVY! I was really unsure of how dairy free, gluten free gravy would come out. But it was actually not so different from regular gravy.

*I updated this recipe to use chicken sausage rather than turkey because it has a little more grease, and because I discovered that using rice flour rather than all purpose flour gives it a much smoother texture and no bitter after taste that I have noticed with some GF flours. This recipe does require a good deal of salt as rice flour and almond milk both are ever so slightly sweet on their own, but the flavor is terrific when it's all done.*

GFDF Sausage Gravy (Updated)

1 lb sweet italian chicken sausage
6 Tbs dairy free buttery spread (Earth Balance or BetterLife are good)
1/3 cup white rice flour
about 1 cup plain almond milk (more or less as needed)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground back pepper

Heat a large skillet over medium/high heat. Add the sausage and brown. Turn heat down to low. Remove chicken to a plate while keeping as much grease as possible in the skillet. Add butter and allow to melt. Slowly stir in rice flour and until flour and butter mixture resembles crumbled bits of dough. Cook stirring contantly about 1-2 minutes. Start adding milk a tablespoon or two at a time and stir so that flour crumbles dissolve (this is necessary to avoid lumpy gravy). Add more milk until the gravy is slightly thinner than the desired consistency. Return sausage to skillet and heat, stirring or whisking constantly until gravy thickens. Add salt and pepper. Enjoy!

  Over Bob's Red Mill biscuits (following the recipe on the side of the Biscuit and Baking Flour package), this was very good! You should try it. Seriously.

 
  This morning we are going to try Chebe GF Cinnamon Bread Mix and I'm going ot make a simple powdered sugar, vanilla extract and almond milk icing. Hopefully it's good and we can add that to our breakfast options as well, I'll letcha know!

Bob is my hero!

  Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pancake Mix is great!! We substituted Ener-G egg replacer and almond milk, and I had to add a decent amount more almond milk than the recipe called for, but the pancakes had a yummy flavor and were sufficiently fluffy. One strange thing is that, no matter how long you leave them on the griddle, they never really browned. But that's ok, they tasted great with Earth Balance butter melted all over them and a little bit of maple syrup. We prepared our turkey bacon in the oven this time, but I think I liked the way they came out on the skillet yesterday better.

  Best of all, Jack ate 2 whole pancakes!