HELLO HELLO HELLO!
I’ve been neglecting my beautiful little blog lately. How rude! But I’m back, BAYBEEE! I spent a month in Canada where I absolutely destroyed my body, eating nothing but poutine and late night jerk chicken and beef patties. Not to mention the libations I’d treat myself to whenever the mood struck! Needless to say, by the end of the trip my body was playing a fun game of “will I make it to the toilet on time?” and I decided that I no longer wanted to play Russian Roulette with my butt. (does this analogy make sense? I think you get the point…)
Once I got back to LA I decided to cut back heavily on wheat/gluten, dairy, processed foods and sugar. I obviously haven’t been sticking to this 100% (I mean, I’ve been to Vegas TWICE in the past month) but I do find that when I steer clear from these things, I feel a whole lot better. As we all know, September 23rd marked the first day of fall. In LA it still feels like we’re frolicking around in Satan’s inferno but the gourds at Trader Joe’s activated something in my autumnal bones. I started craving Thanksgiving dinner.
WHAT?! But it’s too early, Julia! How could you???? Here’s the thing. Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I’m a firm believer that you should be able to indulge in Thanksgiving flavours any day of the year. My favourite part of thanksgiving is the stuffing, I mean..family and friends and blah blah blah but also STUFFING. So how does one achieve the flavours of stuffing sans bread? I will tell you.
Julia’s Breadless Stuffing
Ingredients
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
3 celery stalks, diced
1 package mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 medium-large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 apples, diced
5 medium sage leaves, chopped
2-3 springs of fresh thyme
2 chicken, turkey, or pork sausages (I used spicy Italian chicken)
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tbsp grainy mustard
1 tbsp apricot jam or maple syrup (or if you’re not doing sugar, some apple sauce)
Splash olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- pre-heat oven to 375. Toss sweet potato in a bit of oil, salt, pepper and nutmeg and arrange on a roast pan. Roast for 20-25 minutes until soft and slightly brown.
- In a large pan, remove sausage from casing and cook over medium heat, breaking up into crumbles. When cooked, set aside.
- Using the same pan and a splash of olive oil, sauté the onion, mushrooms, thyme sprig and garlic for 5-7 minutes.
- Add the celery and apple and cook for another 5 minutes.
- In a small sauce pan, add broth, grainy mustard and jam/syrup. Reduce over medium heat until some of the liquid evaporates and thickens a bit.
- Remove the thyme sprig (the leaves should have most fallen off) and add the roasted sweet potato and cooked sausage do your veggies.
- Add the chopped sage and reduced broth and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve with chicken, mashed potatoes and salad. ENJOY!!!
THANKSGIVING CAME EARLY! What a friggin’ delight this this was. There are so many textures and flavours going on, you won’t even miss the bread. The earthy umami mushrooms, tangy apples, comforting sweet potatoes, earthy sage, salty sausage and hint of sweetness from the apricot preserves. WOW. I served this with chicken thighs I made in my instant pot, (literally chucked them in on the rack with a bit of garlic, broth, salt, pepper and paprika and put them on pressure cook for 8 min. boom) some mashed potatoes (mashed them with broth instead of butter, cause ya know, the whole dairy thing) and a bright baby kale salad with lemony vinaigrette.
You could call this a casserole, help yourself to a bigger portion and call it dinner or serve it with poached eggs on top the next day and call it breakfast. You can omit the sausage, swap in veggie broth and call it Vegan! Call it whatever you want, it’s delicious.
Treat yourself to a thanksgiving feast tonight, or bring this to your actual Thanksgiving potluck and I swear it’ll be a hit!
EAT THIS AND SHUT UP! (and like and comment and share and I love youuuu)
xoxo
Julia
eatthisandshutup.com 