Breakfast Sausages

The head of my department hosted a fun in the snow day out on the lake--sledding, skiing, snowball fights and all that--followed by veggie chili. So, for once, I did not have to make dinner. So, I thought I would share our Sunday brunch: pancakes with blueberries and raspberries, hash browns, tofu scramble, and these breakfast sausages. The boys loved them and gobbled them down. To my palate, the spicing in these is spot on, and the end result is incredibly sausage-like (well, for someone who has not had meat in over 2 1/2 years).

INGREDIENTS

- 1/2 cup white kidney beans, rinsed and drained

- 1 cup water or veggie broth

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 1 tbsp mushroom soy sauce

- 1 tbsp maple syrup

- 1 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

- 1 tsp garlic powder

- 1 tsp paprika

- 1 tsp dried sage

- 1/2 tsp nutmeg

- pinch of cayenne

- 1/2 tsp thyme

- 1/2 tsp dried rosemary

- 1 tsp whole fennel seed

- fresh ground pepper

METHOD

Get water on its way to boiling in your steamer

1. Mash beans finely with a fork. Add in everything else up to the cayenne. Grind thyme, rosemary, and fennel seed together with a mortar and pestle. Add to mixture with the pepper. Mix together with a fork.

2. Shape a ping pong ball sized piece of dough into a sausage shape and wrap in a small piece of tin foil like a tootsie roll. Repeat until all dough is gone (makes about 25). Some of my recipes call for large breakfast sausages. In this case, make 6 large sausages.

3. Steam for 20 mins (35-40 for large sausages), rotating half way through if your steamer is small. Cool, and remove from wrappings. (Since we did not eat all 25 sausages, I kept half in the wrappings and froze them. We will see how well they fare in the freezer).

4. OPTIONAL: Place sausages in a frying pan with 2 tbsp of water and 1/4 cup maple syrup. Bring to bubbling and simmer until syrup thickens. Serve.