This past weekend, I was with some dear friends at the beach, and we were thumbing through some recipe books (no, I didn’t bring them…and, no, I don’t just talk about food with my friends :)). Anyway I found this stuffed sausage mushroom recipe that looked really good. See the picture below…
Yumm…Ok, my iphone picture of this picture isn’t so great but you’ll have just trust me that it looked really tasty.
Anyway, I thought, as good as this looks, there is no way I’m taking the time to stuff anything, but I was really craving the flavors of this recipe. So, with a few tweaks, and no actual stuffing, I ended up with this Sausage Mushroom Casserole, and, I have to say, it turned out really well! Quick, easy and delicious!!
Alice kept saying “Oh my gosh. oh my gosh. Mom, wow this is so good!” I literally had to grab it from her to take a quick picture before she devoured it. I have to agree with her, this dish is quite good. It will likely become a new weekly staple for us! Scott kept saying since we used Italian sausage that we should add some cheese and marinara or pizza sauce to it. I think I’ll try that next time. And I might also try this recipe again without the Italian sausage and just a plain sausage to really get the traditional stuffed mushroom appetizer taste. Regardless, I am happy to have this meal in my arsenal. I hope you all like it as much as we did!
We used Whole Foods mild Italian pork sausage and just took it all out of the casings. There were four so you can see they were a decent size….
Since I had my ulu knife to cut the mushrooms up with in the colandar, then I just chopped the celery and onion by hand. But if I didn’t have the ulu knife, I would have just put all of the veggies in the food processor to save some time.
4 mild itailian pork sausage (maybe about 3 oz each), take out of the casing
2 8 oz. packages of mushrooms, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
small white or yellow onion or half of a medium onion, chopped
2-3 tbsp of butter
2 tbsp wine
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup gluten free bread crumbs
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350.
Chop (or food process) your mushrooms, celery and onion.
Mince your garlic.
Heat a large pan on high and add 2 tbsp of butter, minced garlic, and mushrooms.
Cook for about 10 minutes or until the mushrooms start to brown. Pour out any extra liquid from the mushrooms.
While that is cooking, heat your cast iron skillet (make the sausage brown and crispy!), take the sausage out of the casing and add it to your skillet or pan.
Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often, until no longer pink.
Add the celery, onion and wine to the mushrooms and cook for about 5-7 minutes until they start to soften.
Add the sausage, grease and all (trust me), to the pan of veggies.
Add the gluten free bread crumbs to the mixture and stir.
Cook for 35 minutes or until it gets brown and cripsy.
Notes
We use our Ulu knife to cut up the mushrooms. I just put them in the colander and chop with my U shaped knife. You can get them on amazon.
We love Kinnikinnick Gluten Free Panko Style Bread Crumbs. You can get them on vitacost.com or Whole foods.
Optional: parmesan cheese mixed in or on top would be great! You could also try it with some tomato sauce for a change. My husband keeps saying "mmm,it's like a pizza". Not really what I was going for but he likes it nonetheless.
Got any Champagne leftover from the weekend? Great, then I have the perfect recipe for you! If you don’t, it might be worth getting an inexpensive split.
I would normally be too cheap to buy Champagne just for a recipe, but I had a little leftover from Spring Break. Anway, I am so glad I did. This dish was really good!! I don’t usually love pork chops because mine tend to be a little dry but these were anything but dry. They were tender, juicy, and they had so much flavor! And I know, the recipe below looks a little more complex than I normally like in my recipes but I promise, it’s really easy to make!! Everyone in our family loved it! I hope your family loves it too!
Heat your cast iron skillet on high and let it warm up (so the pork will sear well).
After a minute or two, add 2 tbsp of butter.
Then add your pork chops to the skillet and seer for 3 minutes on each side.
Remove pork chops and place them on a plate.
Turn heat down to low and add 1 tbsp of butter and the shallots.
Cook shallots for 2 minutes.
Add the Champagne and stir well with the shallots.
Place the pork back in the skillet, baste with the Champagne sauce and place in the oven.
Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes (for thick 2 inch pork chops) or 30-35 minutes for thinner chops) or until thoroughly cooked.
Heat 2 tbsp of butter in another large pan.
Add the mushrooms and cook until nice and golden brown.
Remove pork from oven and add the sauteed mushrooms.
Stir in the tarragon and drizzle with lemon juice.
Notes
Tip: In order to get the mushrooms nice and brown, I'll pour out the excess liquid (water) once they have cooked for about 5 or so minutes. You can even use a paper towel or two so soak up the excess water.
You could skip the tarragon and lemon juice and it's still really good!
I love my sweets. I always have. And, well, probably a little too much. Sometimes when I have a carby, sweet tooth craving, I don’t necessarily want a dozen of anything sweet laying around the house. But one, just one, is perfect. Well…usually. 🙂
While I have been laying low on the chocolate, this has been a great sweet treat replacement. And it has 8 grams of fiber from the coconut flour so it will keep you full. I also use 1 capsule full of psyllium husk capsules (see picture below). This is just a fiber that is good for you and will help keep you regular. You go every day, right? We should be going every single day. I didn’t mean to go off on the potty talk but it’s important. Really. Maybe try some magnesium citrate and psyllium husk if you need a little “help” and/or a good probiotic. But I digress. The other reason I use the psyllium husk so that it gives the cake a great squishy texture that feels similiar to traditional gluten-filled baked goods. And, it also has a tablespoon of alkalizing lemon (I use the jar of lemon juice – see below for pic- it’s just easier). And this treat is only about 160 calories. Ekk that just made me squirm a little. I don’t count calories, well not anymore, but I know that many are interested so I thought I would see, just out of curiorsity and for something fairly big and satifying, I was surprised.
To be totally honest, while I love this treat, my husband is the only other person in our family that has tried it. He believes that anything cake-like in nature must have chocolate. So I wasn’t surprised when his critique was, “it was good, but needed some chocolate.” So it could be terrible and I could be the only person who loves this mug cake, but I don’t think I will be. At least, I hope not!
So this is what it looks like in my mug, but I didnt think it was a very pretty picture so I put it on a plate, with some lemon zest, that I could use in my mug cake, but I won’t actually because that would take extra time. I cook a lot but I’m a lazy cook.
For what it’s worth, I don’t love the Nutiva coconut flour. I just used it today for the first time and it seems denser and the cake seemed a little dry. This cake is never dry. But to be fair, it could be that my egg was a bit smaller than normal which I did notice. But I do love Let’s Do Organic coconut flour that you can get from Whole Foods or Vitacost, my favorite online store!
Edited (3/6): I made my cake again today and it was still thick and dry (the raw mixture) with the Nutiva flour so I added 1 tbsp of almond milk. It helped but still wasn’t as good as it was with the Let’s Do Organic Flour. You can also just use 1 tbsp and 1 tsp of coconut flour instead of 2 tbsps. I would do that instead although it still might need a touch of milk. Too bad it’s so different with different brands of coconut flours.
1 psyllium husk capsule, if you have one (you'll have to open capsule)
splash of vanilla, if desired
Instructions
Crack an egg and whisk it in your coffee mug.
Add in all of the above ingredients and stir well.
Put in microwave and cook for 90 seconds and enjoy!
Notes
You might need a little more or less cooking time depending on how strong your microwave is.
Edited (3/6): I made my cake again today and it was still thick and dry (the raw mixture) with the Nutiva flour so I added 1 tbsp of almond milk. It helped but still wasn't as good as it was with the Let's Do Organic Flour. Be sure to add extra 1 tbsp of some kind of milk if you use Nutiva! OR, just use 1 tbsp and 1 tsp of coconut flour instead of 2 tbsps although it might still need a touch of milk if the batter seems thick.
Sometimes when it’s cold out (I know it hasn’t been lately in Atlanta but I wrote this a few weeks ago when it was actually cold), and typically this time of year when our serotonin levels are down some from lack of sunlight, I tend to have more carb cravings. Not that certain carbs are bad, but for me and my body, I tend to feel better on a lower carb regimine. Anyway I have found that these super crispy butternut squash fries are the perfect solution to my craving, and they have half the carbs of regular or sweet potatoes. And now both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s makes it even easier, and fun with the zig zags, to make their pre-cut versions.
Here are the ones from Trader Joe’s….
And these are the ones from Whole Foods…
It’s only 33 carbs for the whole bag! Um yeah, I might have eaten all of them in one sitting…
Butternut squash, cut into bite sized pieces or get them precut (about 10-12 ounces)
1 tbsp arrowroot powder
1-2 tbsp of avocado oil or melted coconut oil
salt to taste
Instructions
Cut the butternut squash if needed into bite sized pieces (cubed or french fry shape)
Preheat oven to 425.
Place it in a freezer sized zip lock bag.
Add 1 tbsp of arrowroot powder to the bag.
Close the bag and shake until the squash is as evenly coated as possible.
Pour the bag of squash onto a baking sheet.
Pour oil and use fork to stir it around so the oil and squash are mixed together.
Bake for 35-40 minutes. After about 20 minutes you can flip the squash (it sound be easy to pick up a flip by then if the bottom is brown and crispy enough).
Cook an additional 15-20 or until crispy.
Add some salt and enjoy!
Notes
Cooking the squash might turn it a darker brown color but it is still okay.
For extra flavor feel free to garnish with cinnamon or pumpkin spices if you want more of a sweet taste or you can try some paprika, garlic, thyme for more of a salty flavor.
So while it’s still only February, even thought it’s currently 74 degrees in Atlanta, I thought I better get this posted before Spring is here since it’s such a great comfort meal. We love meatloaf even more with cauliflower mash. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. I have made this mash a hundred times, but the other day I used more butter and less greek yogurt and it was the best batch, so I will continue to do it this way. All you need for a good cauliflower mash is:
1 head cauliflower
1 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp grass fed butter
1/3-1/2 cup of 2% or full fat greek yogurt (or you can skip this all together and just use extra butter)
pepper to taste
Steam the cauliflower and blend all of the ingredients together. Easy enough! And my son loved it so much he had it for breakfast. I just added extra butter so it would fill him up until lunch.
For the meatloaf, while this recipe isn’t anything ground breaking, it is my favorite meatloaf recipe and well, quite frankly, I needed to post it so I can easily find my recipe the next time.
It may not make for a pretty picture but it sure does taste good…
We used Kinnikinnick bread crumbs and Annie’s ketchup. We use these bread crumbs for our chicken parmesan as well. I should probably post that one, too!
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Natalia Gill - This looks like an easily modifiable paleo/Whole30 breakfast too. Yum!!
landriav - Thanks so much Natalia! I hope you guys like it if you make it. And yes love the breakfast idea!!