Sweet Potato Breakfast Hash

We usually make eggs and bacon for breakfast if we have time (if not, it’s Glutenfreeda Instant Oatmeal for me). But I’m on winter break from law school at the moment, and I wanted to try making something different. This is the product!

Makes 2 Servings

Ingredients:
1 Ruby Sweet Potato
3 strips turkey bacon (we buy Applegate), cooked until fairly crispy
2 cups broccoli spears
1/4 sweet yellow onion, cut into approximate 1 inch pieces.
3 eggs to scramble
Garlic, salt, and pepper for seasoning

Instructions:
Place a skillet on medium-high (6/10) heat. With a sharp, large chef’s knife (preferably one with grooves to prevent a vacuum from forming) cube the sweet potato. If you can find your skinning tool, you can remove the skin from the potato. I couldn’t, so I didn’t! I’d recommend chunks somewhat smaller than the ones pictured here. 1/2 inch cubes would probably work. Place chunks in hot pan, cover with olive oil, and cover pan to allow chunks to cook evenly. These take the longest to cook, so you’ll want to start them first. While those chunks are cooking, Place strips of bacon into a separate skillet to cook. While both pans are cooking, cut the 1/4 onion pieces. Add them to the sweet potato pan, add enough oil so that there is some (but not much) visible at the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with garlic, salt, and pepper (it’d probably be tastier if you used fresh garlic. I used powdered garlic, but now that I’m thinking of it I should have used fresh).

When the bacon is done, tear it into pieces with your fingers and add to the sweet potato skillet. In the now empty skillet where you were cooking the bacon, add broccoli. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to cookie the broccoli. Once the broccoli is roasted (you can see parts of the spear beginning to brown), transfer to the sweet potato skillet.

By now the sweet potato skillet should be finished. After removing the sweet potato mix from heat and placing in serving bowls, I decided to cook scrambled eggs (not pictured here). I placed the eggs on top of the sweet potato mix, and served in a bowl. It was quite good!

Recipe: Paleo Pancakes!

I’m not sure if you, readers, have noticed this or not, but I’m just a tiny bit stubborn. When forced with having to give up all of my favorite, glutenated foods, I more or less just say “Nope, I’ll find a way around it.” As you might imagine, these workarounds don’t always turn out wonderfully (especially when they’re of my own making!). I’m happy to say that these pancakes do not fall in that category. They are absolutely delicious when topped with maple syrup (or any other topping, I would imagine).

This recipe comes from a FANTASTIC book called Paleo Indulgences. Oddly enough, they’re actually part of a recipe for a Bacon Burger! The pancakes serve as the bun for the burger in that recipe. I have a couple left over, and I’m planning to use them as bread for a Paleo frozen breakfast sandwich trial (stay tuned!). Anyway, I’ve made a few things from this book now, and these pancakes are my favorite thusfar. They taste delicious, and, like most baked Paleo goods, have a pleasant flavor of coconut to them (trust me, I never liked coconut until I was forced to, and these were good). They’re fairly easy to make, and much more filling than normal pancakes. Good luck, and enjoy!

Maple Pancakes (or, Maple Pancake Buns!)

Ingredients:

Dry
1/3 cup (30g) almond flour
3 tbsp coconut flour, sifted (you really must sift coconut flour, or it will be too clumpy)
Salt (a pinch)
1/2 tsp baking powder

Wet
4 eggs
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

Instructions:

Heat a griddle or skillet to 350 degrees (low-medium). Place the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk. Combine all wet ingredients except coconut oil in a separate bowl, whisk to combine. Add the wet ingredients (not the coconut oil) to the dry ingredients, and combine lightly. Once the contents of the two bowls are mixed, add the coconut oil and mix well (you’ll need to aggressively whisk to get the clumps out of the almond/coconut flour). Grease the skillet with either more coconut oil or olive oil spray, and spoon batter onto the skillet/griddle in 3-4″ circles. Allow to cook until the top of the circles bubble and the edges begin to curl upward, then flip. Cook for 2 more minutes (until both sides are browned), serve and enjoy! This recipe made 5 small pancakes, and can easily be doubled.

Recipe: Gluten-Free Breakfast Sandwiches

I don’t know about you, but I am NOT a morning person. I never was, and I highly doubt I ever will be (despite assurances from my parents that all people become morning people once they get paying jobs). So I rarely rise early enough to adequately style my hair and spare the general public its natural gruesomeness, much less to prepare a healthy breakfast! These days, rather than simply adjusting my sleeping schedule and adopting a more adult-like approach to my mornings, I strive to create easy, on-the-go, gluten-free options for my mornings.

Last week, I made blueberry muffins for every day of the work week (Mentioned in my review of Namaste Mixes). While these were certainly delicious and put me in a positive mood, I did feel slightly guilty eating what was more-or-less cake for breakfast every day. So, I decided to brainstorm some healthier breakfast ideas. As I generally do, I tried to remember what my eating habits were like before my recent lifestyle changes. Before I got sick, I used to buy those Jimmy Dean’s Breakfast Sandwiches (the Lite ones, of course), and heat them in the microwave while brushing my teeth. As soon as the microwave would ‘ding!’, I’d be scrambling out the door and rushing to the bus (likely having forgotten some book or paper). I remembered that all you needed to do was wrap these pre-packaged sandwiches in a paper towel, heat them for two minutes, and voila! Breakfast on the go! So, I decided to attempt to emulate these sandwiches with gluten-free biscuits. I hope this recipe proves helpful to you, friend 🙂 It was a delicious way to start the morning today!

Gluten-Free (and Nightshade/Corn/Vinegar/Canola Oil Free) Egg and Cheese Breakfast Sandwiches! (Makes 3 sandwiches)

Ingredients:
1.5 cups Gluten-Free Biscuit Mix (I use Namaste because of my additional allergies, but I know Pamela’s Gluten-free mixes has a biscuit mix and is more readily available. Any gluten-free pie-crust mix or high-protein flour mix recipe would be fine as well. Check out the Gluten-Free 101 section for more info on high-protein mixes).
3 tbsp. Butter
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/3 cup water

3 Egg
3 Slices of Cheese
Any extra ingredients you might like to include with your egg patty
Salt and Pepper

Directions: Bake the Biscuits
I followed the directions on the Namaste Mixes bag, which I will reproduce for you if you do not have directions on the mix you’re using:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine Mix and Baking soda, and add a pinch of salt and any other herbs you’d like to include in your biscuits. Slice 3tsp of butter into small chunks, and then cut into flour mix. I generally use my hands and just squeeze the butter into the mix (it’s easiest). Combine water and egg in a separate bowl, whisk until frothed. Pour wet ingredients into flour mix, and stir until just combined (you don’t want to combine the ingredients too well). Grease a baking sheet, and put some flour on your fingers to more easily manipulate the dough. Spoon dough onto greased sheet and form into discs 2-3 inches in diameter (I get about 6 discs out of a recipe). Bake for 8-10 minutes, until biscuits have browned. Note: These biscuits do not rise much, so while the recipe can make 6 biscuits, you’ll likely need to use 2 per sandwich.

For egg/cheese patty: You’ll need some type of mold to shape your egg into a circle. I have a silicone circle created for the purpose of molding eggs into a circle. This clever site suggests an onion ring!

Silicone Egg Ring:

Or This clever site suggests an onion ring!
Onion Ring:

The Best Onion Ring Sunny-Side Up Eggs Recipes We Can Find

I made my egg patty from scrambled eggs, because I intended to freeze these sandwiches for easy reheating. Scramble one egg per sandwich (3 eggs total for this recipe), and include salt and pepper in scrambled egg. Pour egg into egg mold in a pan set to medium-low heat, and cover the pan (otherwise the top will not cook). Once the top is cooked, sprinkle some shredded cheese, cook for another minute. Use a spoon to push the egg patty onto one biscuit. Cover with another biscuit, and enjoy!

To Freeze and Reheat: Wrap the finished sandwich in plastic wrap until sealed. Put this wrapped sandwich in a Ziploc bag, and store in the freezer until ready (sandwiches should hold for a week). To reheat, remove the sandwich from the plastic wrap, wrap in a paper towel, and heat in the microwave for two minutes. Then, run out of your house because you’re already 15 minutes late for work, and enjoy!

Recipe: Blueberry Muffins

These gluten-free muffins were made from a recipe found in the Culinary Institute of America’s Gluten-Free Baking book. The recipe involves a pretty complex blending of flours (which I totally screwed up), so pay close attention during flour mixing! They turned out pretty well, although I wish I’d used frozen blueberries rather than freshish blueberrys (they were a little too tart for a muffin). I think I’ll try experimenting with some recipes that are a bit less complicated (flour wise) before coming back to this one.

Recipe Coming Soon (Too lazy to type it all out right now).