Breakfast casserole recipe

We're having a para appreciation breakfast today at school, and I happen to be on the committee for this shindig. Well, as the emails started going around, listing what everyone was bringing, I began to notice a frightening amount of bread and sugar. Now, I love a good muffin or breakfast cheesecake (what - who even knew those existed??) but extra padding added to my muffin-top or a sugar-coma halfway through the morning of testing is not the best idea, IMHO. Then I saw that a few people were bringing breakfast casseroles. Yum - protein! But, also loads of meat, cheese, and eggs ... which is not exactly my cup of tea. Enter the perfect opportunity to bring a VEGAN breakfast casserole! I began scouring the internet for recipes (as I had already returned Vegan Brunch to the library...boo). There were some good ideas, but nothing that was exactly what I wanted. So, armed with a few good ideas, I came up with my own recipe! Ta-da! It smelled delicious as it cooked this morning, and I can't wait to try it! I've never brought a vegan dish to a gathering that was a big hit, so I'm not sure how this will go... if everyone loves it, great! If not, more for me!


Bethanie's Breakfast Casserole
* 1 pkg. soy sausage (I used Gimme Lean tube)
* 3 potatoes, washed
* 1 pkg. silken tofu, soft
* 1 red and 1 green bell pepper, washed and diced
* 1/2 white onion, diced (more or less to suit your taste)
* Nutritional yeast ( a few tablespoons...however much you like!)
* 1 tsp. chili powder
* 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
* 1 cube chipotle pepper seasoning (forget the brand...I'll come add it later)
* 1/4 tsp. turmeric (mainly just for color)
* 1 tsp. garlic powder
* 1 tsp. sea salt
* 1-2 TBS. ground flax meal
* 1 can diced tomatoes
* 1 c. (scant) non-dairy milk
* 1 c. Tofutti sour cream
* 1 pkg. Daiya shredded cheddar cheese (use as much as you like)


Brown the sausage in a pan. While you do this, poke the potatoes a couple times and microwave for about 5 minutes (depending on your microwave and how large the potatoes are). When the sausage is browned, remove it from the pan. Using the same pan, add a bit of olive oil and the peppers and onion (medium heat). Once those have cooked and softened a bit, add the tofu. Mix it all around with a spatula and add the spices. I added the flax meal because I was worried it wouldn't stick together enough when I baked it. Cook the tofu and veggies for about 5 min, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, remove the potatoes from the oven and chop into pieces. Spread them around the bottom of a greased 9"x13" casserole dish. Once the tofu is down, pour it into a large bowl and add the sausage, milk, sour cream, tomatoes, and cheese. Mix everything together and pour on top of the potatoes. (I refrigerated mine overnight, so I could just cook it this morning.) Bake at 375 for 35 min. Once I baked it, I also turned the oven to broil for 2-3 min to brown up the top. Enjoy!


Thoughts:
Now that I've tried it, I have some notes to make. It's a bit runny. Delicious, though! Potatoes should have been chopped smaller, so they don't have to be cut up while eating. Plenty of salt, but maybe up the other spices? Also, some of the potatoes are a bit crunchy. Nuke them longer, or bake the whole dish longer.

100-day vegan

I guess sometimes you just need a challenge to get your butt in gear. Apparently a New Year's resolution isn't enough for me to stick to being vegan. I really want to be a good vegan, it just requires re-training my brain and body to not want to eat/use animal products anymore. Habits are hard to break. Hence, a challenge - no one can back down from a good challenge, right?

100 days. No cheating by me - there are always slip-ups, I know, but for what I can control I will strive for 100%. Yay! I'll have to be creative at times, which will be fun! (Right?)

Right now there are yummy vegan lemon bars in the oven...mmmm! I LOVE lemon bars. So good! Yesterday's dinner was tomato basil cream pasta, which I got from Vegan Yum Yum (click for link to recipe). The picture I took doesn't look as good as the real thing, but it was DELISH!

Well, whatever - it's not letting me upload a pic.

This morning I made "Perfect Pancakes" from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's book, Vegan Brunch. They are always really good, but I think I may have mixed them a bit too long. They weren't as fluffy as last time. Dinner tonight is veggie burgers from 1,000 Vegan Recipes (Robin Robertson) and Krispy Kale. (I'm making a chicken sandwich for Daryl.) Speaking of the hubs, who is always supportive of my food choices but wasn't extremely keen on this "100 day challenge, he offered that if I stick to this 100%, he'll take me out for steak on day 101. Ha! :) I'm not so sure about that, but maybe it will help us both have a goal to work toward!

Time to go check on the lemon bars! Happy eating!