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.

Turkey Sausage Stuffing (Dressing) - Wheat, Dairy, Egg, Soy Free

  We're having a cold spell here in North Texas. With Fall just around the corner, it's like we got to start celebrating the new cooler season a little early. So today we had a mini Thanksgiving just for fun. We had grilled turkey cutlets, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and peach cobbler!
  I decided to make the stuffing on a whim and as such did not have all the ingredients, no celery or carrots and I usually would have made this with ground turkey sausage, but it was really good! I'd never thought of eating stuffing on any day other than Thanksgiving but this was easy enough that I think it could become a side dish (or even entree) we have often.

By the way, you could easily leave out the turkey to make this completely vegan and it would still be delicious, and add in sauteed celery and carrots for a more traditional stuffing.

This recipe makes 4 large servings.

Turkey Sausage Stuffing

6 slices of wheat free bread of choice (Food For Life White Rye)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup vegetable broth
1  turkey kielbasa sausage, sliced into coins OR ground turkey sausage
1 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp celery salt
1/8 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 green apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 cup raisins
Soy Free Earth Balance buttery spread to grease pan

Preheat oven to 400.
Cut bread into half inch cubes, spread evenly on a cookie sheet, and bake 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and saute until transparent. Add vegetable broth to pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat slightly. Stir in salt, celery salt, and turkey sausage. Continue to simmer about 5 minutes (If using ground turkey sausage, cook until completely browned) .
In a mixing bowl, stir toasted bread cubes, apple, and raisins together. Pour broth mixture over bread cubes and stir until evenly coated. Sprinkle on poultry seasoning and toss to incorporate.
Spread a thin layer of Earth Balance around a 1.5 qt casserole dish. Pour stuffing mix into casserole dish and bake about 15-20 minutes, until the top begins to brown slightly.

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.

"Pizza" Pasta - Wheat/Gluten, Soy, Dairy Free

 So this is not so much of a recipe as a meal idea, but this was so yummy and quick I had to share! It was brought about by a mistake I made. Before leaving the house to run some errands, I pulled what I thought was ground turkey out of the freezer to thaw as I was planning on making a quinoa/turkey meatloaf. Well, when I got home I realized I had grabbed turkey breasts that my husband wants to smoke tomorrow. So I started digging through the fridge hoping for some inspiration and happened upon some smoked turkey sausage (Butterball brand, as others have soy and/or beef or pork casing) and figured, what the heck.

Anyway, what we came up with was actually super yummy. I have mixed Diaya with pasta with red sauce before and it wasn't as good and the reason, I discovered, is the order you mix them together in. The way the melted cheese mixes with the pasta sauce makes a creamy, orange-ish sauce reminiscent of Chef Boyardee, rather than red sauce with pieces of mozzarella in it.

  So here is the recipe, I hope you like it! It's super kid friendly!

Pizza Pasta

1 package corn pasta, any small shape (read: not spaghetti)
2 Butterball smoked turkey sausages, cut into bite size pieces
1 jar (about 20 oz) your favorite allergy free pasta sauce. We like HEB brand garlic and herb sauce.
1 cup Daiya mozzarella shreds

Cook pasta according to package directions. Once drained, immediately return to pot and add Diaya. Stir until cheese is completely melted. Stir in pasta sauce and sausage. If it's not hot enough, heat over medium heat while stirring constantly since Diaya can burn easily.

Italian Turkey Sausage

  One of my "oh my gosh I haven't even thought about what to make for dinner and we need to eat in 20 minutes" meals is ground italian turkey sausage, corn pasta, and soy-free, dairy free pasta sauce. It's simple, everyone likes it, and as long as I have all the ingredients, it only takes 15 minutes to make. You can buy italian seasoned ground turkey sausage but it's more expensive and contains much more fat than plain ground turkey and has a lot of strange chemical sounding things in the ingredients list. I prefer seasoning plain lean ground turkey myself, and since I do this while I am browning the meat, it takes no extra time. Here is how you do it!

Ground Italian Turkey Sausage

1 lb 97% fat free ground turkey
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp  garlic powder
2 tsp Italian seasoning
2 Tbl fennel seeds
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground cayenne (for spicy sausage)
salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add meat and all seasonings to skillet, stir well to incorporate all seasonings and then cook until well browned.

You can make this ahead of time and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or the freezer for several months.

Pork Free Red Beans and Quinoa

  My dad grew up in New Orleans. As kids, we were no strangers to delicious spicy wonderful cajun cooking. One of my dad's go-to recipes on rare nights that he cooked was red beans and rice, and I loved it! It's made with all sorts of pig products though; a ham bone, bacon, pork andouille sausage, sometimes a smoked pork chop thrown in for good flavor. It's so good but not the healthiest thing in the world and definitely not Jack friendly. But with quinoa instead of rice and all the great turkey products (including sausages!) hitting the market lately, I thought I'd try to replicate this greasy but delicious dish in a Jack friendly, healthier manner. Though this recipe takes about 3 hours, it's so worth it. This was absolutely a success!

  Just as a side note, though there are all types of turkey sausages available, if you are avoiding pork due to allergies or religious reasons, be sure to read the ingredients fully as a lot of them are still in pork casing. Look for artificial casing or just use ground sausage.

Pork Free Red Beans and Quinoa

1 lb red kidney beans, rinsed and picked over
1/2 large yellow or white onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 slices of turkey bacon, cut into pieces
2 cloves minced garlic
2 bay leaves
1+ Tbl Penzey's cajun seasoning (or your favorite cajun seasoning)
1 lb turkey smoked sausage (such as Oscar Mayer)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup cooked quinoa per person
Tabasco (optional)
cocktail onions (a must for me, but not everyone's cup of tea)

In a large stock pot, cover beans with 3 inches of water. Bring to a boil, allow to boil for 5 minutes and then turn off the heat and let sit for 1 hour. Add onion, bell peppers, garlic, bacon, and bay leaves plus a good pinch of salt, pepper, and 1 Tbl cajun seasoning and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until beans are soft, about 1.5-2 hours.
Cut the sausage into rings and then cut in half again to make half circles. Add to the pot and continue to simmer about 20 mins. Add Tabasco and adjust seasoning, if needed.
Remove bay leaves and serve heaping spoonfuls over quinoa. Garnish with cocktail onions 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!