Vegan Breakfast Sausage

Brunch. Breakfast. Brinner. The world seems to be in love with it. It is the new "millennial" thing to do. Wake up Sunday Morning (ya know, 11 am) with a hangover, stumble to a brunch place, stand in line, and spend $20 on a brunch feast. While there is nothing wrong with that - it still sort of pisses me off.

Brunch is a rip-off.

If you have ever made yourself an extravagant breakfast spread at home, so much food you can hardly eat it - what does it cost you? Pennies.

WE GET THIS, going out to eat overall is a rip-off everywhere. Okay, okay - now lets talk about vegan brunch. If you don't go somewhere specifically VEGAN, it can feel like an even more rip off. And once again, unless you want to eat 100% carbs for breakfast while downing the unlimited mimosas you are probably at a loss. Now lets pile on the fact that the food you are eating is SO unhealthy for you, cooked in tons of needless oil, deep fried, smothered in creams, fake cheeses, fake meats, and fake everythings that you come home so unmotivated to do anything that you watch The Office for the eleventh time again.

That's not how I want to feel on a Sunday.

I want to eat something that feels so goddamn crunchy (in the veg-head sense, not the texture sense) that I am practically doing downward dogs while eating breakfast. But sometimes fruit just doesn't do it for me. I love a good smoothie bowl for breakfast like any good instagrammer, but it has this tendency to leave me hungry again in about 2 hours (or less). Adding the tofu to it helps keep me full for longer - but I still sometimes want that nice warm breakfast. My go-to has been tofu scramble for practically a whole year, I never got sick of it. That is until I doubled my protein intake and had to substantially increase my tofu consumption. Now I am trying to consciously space out my meals with tofu in it so I am not chucking the bowl out the window of my kitchen. So necessity being the mother of invention, I've got myself a task to use my now beloved TVP (see last post) for something breakfasty:

Breakfast Sausage Patties

makes 4

1 Cup TVP

2 Tbsp ground flax or chia seed

3 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Ground Sage (I sneak by and use poultry seasoning)

1 tsp Ground Fennel (freshly if you ask my opinion)

1 tsp Liquid Smoke

2 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp Maple Syrup

1/4 - 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp ground pepper

1 Cup Boiling Water

Mix all ingredients in a container and pour in your hot water, mixing thoroughly. Cover container and let sit for 5 - 10 minutes. In the meantime, heat up a griddle pan, or your favorite non-stick pan on a medium-high heat. Depending on the size of your TVP and how your flax is feeling that day, you may need to add anywhere from 1 Tbsp to 2 Tbsp of flour to really get it to form into patties. Form into four (4) patties and place directly on the griddle (this will be sticky!) Cook on each side until nicely browned and cooked through (3-5 minutes), being sure to regulate the heat so it doesn't burn.

Serve literally any way you'd like - on the side of pancakes, in a breakfast sandwich.

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