Simple Vegan Sausage

Although I do not claim to be a vegan I do find value in meatless meals. The last year and a half, I have drawn down on eating a lot of meat and find protein sources in legumes and nuts. With this in mind, I was delighted to find a recipe by Vegan Dad on a vegan version of a ‘sausage’ link. Now, you know I can see myself salivating over this link with some sauteed onions and other condiments. With my sausages, I will either make some sweet potato fries or grilled veggies and rice on the side. What I like is that you can also stretch beans by adding a few ingredients. You will find this very simple. I did not use all ingredients as this recipe is very adaptable so feel free to use what you have in your cabinet.

Ingredients

• ½ cups of canned pinto beans or home cooked pinto beans (rinsed and drained)
• ½ tsp of fennel seeds
• 1 tsp of sea salt
• 1 tsp of black beans
• 1 cup of vital gluten flour
• ⅓ cup of water
• 1 tsp of garlic powder or finely chopped garlic cloves
• ½ cup of olive oil
• ½ cup of red pepper flakes
• ¼ cup of nutritional yeast  

Directions

1) Take the drained pinto beans, mash them with a fork then add all other ingredients.

2) Form the ingredients into four ‘sausages’

3) Use four sections of ‘foil” to act as a steaming apparatus and add the ‘sausages’ into a pot of boiling water.

4) Steam for 1 hour then bake for an additional 20 minutes.

5) Baking them will bring a color to the ‘sausages”

6) Place in container for future use.

7) Serve on a bun, with your own condiments. I sauteed onions and placed on them with some ketchup and mustard (with home made french fries).

Green Smoothie

I know what you're thinking, "a green smoothie" how is that tasty. But stick with me for a while. Earlier today I wanted to eat a nice, juicy burger with fresh french fries but didn't want the calories. I also by passed Popeye's and Burger King to name a few fast food choices. The funny thing is I came home from my walk and decided to just grab some fruit and water. Over the weekend I bought a big bag of turnip greens which i had been craving for a while. A long time ago, a fellow Facebooker posted a healthy smoothie that had Kale in it but I was like 'nah" that's not gonna work. Anyway, flashforward to today.

I saw that I still had a lot of greens left and wondered what would I do with it. I knew I could make another bath of turnip greens or I could put it with some beans or in a veggie soup. I was curious about how it would taste in a smoothie. So I took a few ingredients which I whipped up in mere seconds with my blender. Mind you my blender is not an over priced one, it is one I got on sale at Kmart a few months ago.

Pam's Green Smoothie:

1 cup of turnip greens

1/2 banana

1 tablespoon of blue berry flaxseeds

1 tablespoon of plain non fat greek yogurt

Water

1 teaspoon of raw honey

1 small apple

Instructions:

Wash all ingredients, then cut the apple and place in the blender, add the greek yogurt, blue berry flaxseeds, water, banana, raw honey with the turnip greens on the top. Blend on high for 5 minutes. When finished serve in your favorite container.

Calories: 267

Fat Grams: 3 grams of fat

Happy eating! I will put this one in my rotation for the new year. It was delightfully nice. No bitterness. I think the apple and banana balances out the bitterness of the greens.

Pam