DINNER ROLLS (Sandwich Buns, Snack Pizza Rounds)

This recipe, depending upon how you shape it before baking (and adjust the baking time accordingly) works well for a number of “bread substitute” types of recipes or meal plans. You can use this, English muffin size, to make open-faced snack pizzas just as easily as you can eat it as it is, or turn it into the base of a breakfast sandwich with your favorite ingredients. I can be used for sloppy joe and/or biscuits with sausage and country gravy style of meal plans too. I’ve used it as a “burger bun” style of bread replacement when eating salmon burgers, turkey burgers, or beef burgers, as well as making a bun sandwich with it. It does okay, flavor wise, with either sweet (top with stevia sweetened cinnamon butter for example) or savory items. It freezes well. It tastes just fine by its self or with butter on it. (Try garlic bread, too–just remember it is soft and can easily crumble). I’ve not tried it yet for bread crumbs but I bet it could be crumbled and used as a base to make herb croutons, or a stuffing base with turkey broth onions celery and sage, and is basically a good go-to item to have on hand since it freezes so well. It can be made ahead and frozen. It thaws easily in the toaster oven in the amount of time it took me to make the meal I wanted to use it for. When I made “pizza” with it, I added it frozen to the baking tray, topped it with frozen sauce, and frozen homemade sausage, and the dairy-free cheese, and it worked well enough too.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 Cup HEB Unsweetened Coconut Yogurt
• 1/2 Cup Coconut Flour
• 1/2 Cup Boiling Water
• 1 TBSP Psyllium Husk
• 2 TBSP Golden Flaxseed Meal
• 2 TBSP Melted Butter
• 1 TBSP White Vinegar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp Real Salt
• 1/4 tsp Arrowroot

INSTRUCTIONS:

You can find this recipe’s original author’s instructions to mix these and bake them here: Keto Vegetarian’s Recipe

I made modifications from the original recipe due to different allergens. One note is that the water should be boiling when it is used to activate the psyllium. Once mixed, the dough needs to rest for about 10 minutes. The oven should be preheated to 350 degrees. These are baked about 25 minutes (until golden on top). Turn off oven and let cool for 10 minutes before removing from the oven.

They do well: 1) frozen and thawed (I froze them flat on a tray, then transferred them to individually sealed bags with a piece of parchment paper between the split portion so as to be able to separate them before thawing more easily so i could thaw in the toaster oven. 2) can be used without any further work than making them. 3) do well from the fridge and being used.

They are too moist. Like many “coconut” based items these have a tendency to have a too moist texture. They do not hold up well to a burger and don’t toast firm enough, even in the toaster oven (but that’s better than not toasting them) to really not crumble when eating a juicy burger. I would suggest always using sandwich style lettuce in the bun if you are using them as a burger bun so it catches what ever you have inside (tuna salad, salmon beef or turkey burgers, chickpea/hummus spread, etc) when the bun eventually falls apart, as it likely will.

Recipes on this blog I recently used in combination with this dinner roll recipe to make various types of meal plans:

1. Snack Pizza
   
   
2. Salmon Patties
   
3. Burger Patties
4. Turkey Patties
5. Sandwich
6. Open face as a base for: sloppy joes, or sausage and country gravy.
7. Just as is, or with butter, or toasted with butter or seasonings (garlic bread, cinnamon and stevia, etc).

Turkey Burgers

This recipe is really economical! At least at the current moment. My local store sells 2 pounds of Turkey CHEAPER than any other type of protein, including beans! Wow! Hm? But beyond its frugal nature, it also tastes GREAT! Win, Win, Scenario!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 pounds ground Turkey
  
• 16 tsp parsley
• 2 TBSP unsweetened coconut yogurt
• 2 TBSP Dijon Mustard
• 1 TBSP Real Salt
• 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
• 2 tsp Garlic powder
• 2 tsp Onion powder
• 2 tsp KFC-Style Poultry Seasoning

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix all ingredients together well.  Shape into 8 patties.  Freeze in a single, flat, layer, until firmly frozen. Move from your freezing tray to sealed, air-tight packaging, and replace into the freezer until ready to use. When you are ready to cook a portion or two either grill on the grill, or cook in olive oil.

RESULTS:
Tried and truly terrific! These taste BETTER than beef burgers. They are a basic go-to meal planner. They are also soft and tender, as well as they are moist. NOTE: If you have someone who has an egg allergy you are cooking for, use this recipe as is. If you don’t have an egg allergy, feel free to use 2 TBSP of MAYO instead of the coconut yogurt. The purpose is to keep these burgers moist.

Salmon Patties (or Salmon Nuggets)

This recipe is easy and tasty. It is a great recipe to use to put up some food in the freezer to have easy meals or snacks later on. You can shape these into either patties for fish burgers or nuggets to make them more salad ready or as a snack.

INGREDIENTS:

• 13.5 Ounce Can of Salmon (Skin on/bones in are okay–as we’re blending this into a patty and that all adds nutrition, or remove depending on your preferences)
• Carrot (2-4 TBSP grated)
• 2 green onions (chopped)
• 1 tsp Chives (rough chopped)
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 TBSP coconut flour (or ground chia seeds)
• 1 TBSP Olive Oil
• 1 tsp Dill Weed
• 1/8 tsp onion powder
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Grate raw carrot. Zest lemon. Drain can. Put all ingredients together in high-speed blender, or food processor. Whirl until well combined.
2. Form into patties. Bake in preheated 400 degree toaster oven, and bake approximately 40 minutes. Don’t cook too long or they will dry out. Check on these as they cook for the timing in your toaster oven.

This recipe yields about 6 patties or about 12-20 nuggets. You can easily freeze these, thaw by cooking in a toaster oven.

Cheese (Dairy Free)

This cheese is an attempt to have a pizza-friendly cheese. I’ve seen a number of recipes online which use similar ingredients (and another I’m awaiting being able to hopefully purchase some ingredients to give it a try as I don’t have on hand what I need to make it) and end up with something you can supposedly slice, grate, shred, melt, or other wise use a cheese, but which aren’t made with cow or other bovine milk and are available to those on any number of diets (vegan, paleo, gluten free, dairy free, whole 30, keto, low carb, diabetic, for example)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 Can Full Fat Coconut milk
• 3 TBSP Unflavored Gelatin powder
• 2 TBSP Coconut Flour
• 1 TBSP Nutritional Yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• OPTIONAL: add a pinch (to taste) of Thyme and Onion Powder. NOTE: this helps especially if you dislike the nutritional yeast flavor! Other flavor enhancing options? Try a bit of mustard powder, “Unami” seasoning, a bit of liquid from canned olives, and/or sauerkraut juice.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Locate the bowl you are going to use, when you’ve finished the process, to “mold (or shape)” the cheese into the shape you desire. Some ideas include a round, glass bowl, or perhaps a mini “loaf” pan for cracker sized slices. I’m planning on using this for shredding so the size and shape do not matter. But you will need the bowl handy when the time is right. Set it next to the stove top in easy reach.
2. Measure all the ingredients. No need to mix first. Just place them into a medium size pan, as you measure the correct amount of each ingredient, adding them in the order listed above directly into your sauce pan. It should look more or less like this:
   
   
3. Place the pan over medium heat while you are stirring to mix the ingredients together. NOTE: the consistency of the mixture, before cooking, is roughly like fat-head dough. In fact it is so much like fat head dough it made me wonder if I can do something similar to make a vegan fat-head dough. Anyway, back to our cheese recipe at hand, once the mixture is fully stirred, continue stirring while you turn up the heat to medium or medium-high. Keep stirring.
   
   
4. Stir and heat. You are looking for that mixture to reach a full “boil” and you want to boil the mixture for a minimum of 3 minutes. Once you’ve hit the 3 minute mark, time wise (and I do suggest timing it), dump it quickly into your awaiting bowl which is going to serve as the shape mold for the resulting vegan cheese.
5. Now cover the cheese.
6. Place in the fridge. As it cools your vegan cheese will firm up and will become a texture you can slice and you’ll also be able to shred it to use it on pizza, etc. or in recipes.

TIPS:

• FLAVOR: Experiment with adding optional depth of flavor with these suggested trials: add a pinch to taste of one or more of the following spices/flavorings: Thyme, Onion Powder, mustard powder, “Unami” seasoning, a bit of liquid from canned olives, or a bit of sauerkraut juice.
• COLOR: This “cheese” is a mozzarella style cheese. However, you can play around a bit with this and get different color cheeses. Who says cheese has to be white or whitish? Other things to try? Annatto Oil (warm for a few minutes 1.5 TBSP of annatto seeds in 1/4 cup quality oil until the spice extrudes into the oil. Store and use. P.S. Annatto is the normal food-safe colorant in cheddar cheeses.) Turmeric. Mustard Powder. Or something creative like beet juice! or Spinach! Who says just because milk is white cheese has to be? It tastes the same, hm?
• TEXTURE: Need a smoother result? Use an immersion blender to blend everything instead of a whisk, while stirring and cooking. I found this texture to be okay as is!
• SHAPE: Play around with the “molds” you use. There are, for example, long barrel shaped silicone ice cube makers, made especially for making ice for water bottles. These may be fun to put this mozzarella like cheese into and mold into a string-cheese style shaped snack cheese.

RESULTS:

• BATCH SIZE: The yield on this is okay. It is neither expensive to do nor does it make too much to use in a reasonable time frame.
• FREEZER FRIENDLY: I will test (and report later) on freeze capability (both as is, and shredded) to see how it works for food prep and storage.
• PIZZA: To use this recipe to make pizza (snack, or larger) simply thaw some of the faux tomato sauce we made previously, spread over a the dinner roll recipe I made last week, a low-carb  gluten-free tortilla, or cassava crust recipe made up. Then add your favorite toppings and shred this cheese atop. Bake as you normally would. This cheese will melt and turn back to a more solid shape when cooled.
• SNACK: To snack, use the cheese as is. Remember to play around with the flavorings and molds to achieve the desired shapes and taste you prefer. If you happen to have a mini loaf pan, that size is perfect for slicing onto crackers. I happened to find a mini-loaf pan for $0.25 at a thrift store! Cannot beat that for a cheese mold!
• FREEZER? (testing this–will report soon)
• FUTURE: I have a few more vegan cheeses I’m going to try over time.

This cheese sets up well, was super easy to remove from the glass dish (it came out whole), and shreds easily with my normal cheese shredder. The shredder was also easy to clean up afterwards.  The shredded cheese melted nicely. The cheese sliced tasted okay and the texture was ok too. 

Pickled Beets

So, if you’ve made nitrate-free corned beef (vegan or with any cut of beef meat) and decided to try the option using the water inside the canned beets, drained off, to make the corned beef portion more like the traditional red-color most corned beef (even vegan) are served looking like, you may now be wondering: What on earth do I do with a drained can of beets? You could add fresh water to a pan, heat them, and serve them along side another meal but you could also make PICKLED BEETS! YUM. Yum!

INGREDIENTS (SUGGESTED)

Consider all of the spices listed below as OPTIONAL. See one you hate? No worries, leave it out. See one you love which is missing? Again no worries, included it. Here is what you are going to need:

• White Vinegar
• Water
• Pinch of one or more of the following: Salt
• Nutmeg
• Cinnamon
• Allspice
• Ginger
• Black Pepper Corns or Powdered
• Whole or ground Cloves (I put a LOT of these little beauties in mine!)
• Molasses, Brown Sugar (swerve), Stevia Package, or a dash of Maple syrup.
• OPTIONAL: Other spices as desired or none–use whole or fresh or ground

METHOD:

1. Place the drained beets you used in making the nitrate-free corned beef (vegan or with any cut of beef meat) recipe into your canning size or recycled but clean jar.
2. Use the jar to “measure” the amount of vinegar you need. Fill the jar of beets approximately 1/3 the way full of vinegar.
3. Add enough water to top off to the headspace level in your jar you normally use. NOTE: The beets should not stick out of the jar or cross into the headspace. If they do, use a larger jar, or two jars, instead.
4. Pour off the vinegar water into a sauce pan (don’t worry–it will be starting to turn PINK from the beets–that’s fine).
5. Put in a dash of each of the spices you want to use. Taste. Adjust seasonings to your taste buds.
6. Bring to a boil.
7. Allow to cool enough to then safely pour over beets in prepared jar, allowing for the 1/4 inch headspace. Use a jar funnel. Tightly seal the lid. Shake the jar well to incorporate. Place in fridge for a minimum of 48 hours before testing for doneness.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:

• Enjoy as is, right out of the container!
• Use as a side to your favorite meals
• Snack on these.
• Enjoy in a salad.
• Use in any recipe or way you would use normal, high-sugar, pickled spiced beets.
• Use as a topper in a wrap or for burgers. Give it a try on turkey burgers. Yum, yum!
• Use it with any “lettuce” wrap filled with any ingredients.
• Use as a soup garnish.

Did you think of any other use? Let me know in the comment below.

Corned Beef (Nitrate Free, Vegan Option)

Corned or corning meat is a process, not a specific cut. Traditionally, corned beef is cured in a salty brine to which common pickling spices are added, as well as nitrates. If you are sensitive to either those pickling spices (many are seeds after all) and/or sensitive or on medications precluding you from taking in nitrates and/or sensitive to nightshades (commonly included in those spice packages) and/or wanting to control the type of salt used–then this recipe is for you!

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 cups water
• 1 cup real salt
• 2 tsp whole cloves
• 1 tsp whole black pepper corns
• 2 TBSP pickling spice (make your own, you safe, blend or use a store bought blend–but it should include whole mustard seeds if you can have those)
• OPTIONAL: some folks like to add sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, or molasses. This is a matter of personal preference and you can do so or skip this step.
• OPTIONAL: shredded raw beets and/or the juice of 2 cans of beets, drained

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Begin by placing the desired spices, salt, and water into your pan. If you chose to use beets as the coloring, add them too. Beets are optional.
   
2. Bring to a boil.
   
3. Allow to boil for 10 minutes to ensure any bacteria, etc. is dealt with.
   
4. Cool to room temperature.
   
5. Add beet juice for coloring. NOTE: Professionally canned foods from the grocery store (and yours if you’ve followed the correct canning procedures) are already sanitary. If you add the beet juice PRIOR to sanitizing the fluids/spices in steps 1-3 above, then the color of the water will not be red. Since the point of adding the beet liquid is to stain the meat a bit red, like nitrates normally would do, without having to use nitrates, then you will need to trust the beet water from a can is sanitary to use it, or skip the step of adding it, and just accept nitrate-free corned beef is grey not red when it is sliced after cooking.
   
6. Into the above prepared brine, submerge uncooked brisket (beef), other cut of meat (raw beef), or tofu/meat substitute for vegan corned beef. NOTE: There are a number of recipes for this vegan option online. However once the vegan “meat” is made, it needs to be in the brine.
   
7. Cover tightly and place in the fridge for a week. To become “corned” this needs to marinade in the brine. After the brine has soaked into the beef, drain it (discard brine) and cook it as you would normally cook (options are: boiled dinner, baked in the oven, using a slow cooker, using a roaster, or pressure cooker) .

Coleslaw (Vegan, Egg Free)

How do you make coleslaw, or other mayo related items, when you cannot have eggs or nightshades? Hm! Most egg substitutes include some form of nightshade as part of the ingredients so…there is that. In comes coconut yogurt to the rescue?

INGREDIENTS:

• Cabbage (green, white, savoy, asian, purple, red, or a “kit” of washed and shredded cabbage from the produce department–you name it, it is all good!)
• 2 Baby Carrots
• Unsweetened Coconut Yogurt
• 1 TBSP Vinegar
• 1 Package Sweet Leaf Stevia
• 1/2 tsp (approximately) celery salt (adjust seasoning to your taste buds)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Begin by shredding fresh, raw, cabbage and carrot, if desired; or use a coleslaw shredded cabbage base kit. Note: it doesn’t matter if you use one type of cabbage, both colors, asian cabbage or a packaged cabbage, we just need shredded cabbage. I used about 1 cup of shredded veggies for this slaw version.
2. Set aside the veg until later.
3. Begin mixing the coleslaw dressing ingredients. Taste and adjust as needed.
4. Blend the dressing and the veggies together until well combined.
5. Store in the fridge, covered, for 30 minutes or longer to allow the flavors to blend and meld together.

NOTE: This recipe also works well with broccoli and/or shaved brussles sprouts (do this yourself, or buy a “kit” of them in the grocery store produce aisle).

Barbecue Sauce (Nightshade Free)

I’ve seen a number of people talking about making this recipe and even including screen shots of having taken it off various websites, including facebook private groups and pinterest. So I’m not 100% certain where this recipe started out, or whose recipe it originally was; however, I’ve adapted for different allergens the basic recipe I found online to give this one a trial.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cups rhubarb (chopped)
• 1.5 cups onion (chopped)
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 TBSP molasses
• 3 TBSP maple syrup
• 2 TBSP vinegar
• 1 TBSP garlic powder
• 1 tsp smoked salt
• 1/2 tsp ginger (ground)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Add all of the above ingredients into a sauce pan which is placed over medium heat.
2. Bring to a boil.
3. Cook for about 30 minutes or until the volume of this mixture is reduced to about half the volume you started out with.
4. The rhubarb should be very soft. If not, cook it a bit longer until it is.
5. Blend with an immersion blender until smooth.
6. Use right away, or store in an air-tight container in the fridge for use as desired.
7. Enjoy!

NOTE: If you use pre-chopped, washed, and frozen rhubarb, it may take longer to get to the soft stage, or not, since its already been blanched before freezing. I didn’t bother to thaw my frozen rhubarb first. Just cooked it to the appropriate “softness” stage to blend into this sauce.

Yield: Approximately 2 cups

Result: This is worth the effort to tweak to your individual tastes.

Raw Dough Fudge-Brownies

Recently, I had a happy accident! While trying a fudge-brownie recipe, I accidentally left out one of the most important ingredients. Minus that important ingredient–viola raw brownie dough was born! Egg free, too, so it is safe to enjoy a spoonful or two.

YIELD: 20 servings of a scoop on a regular spoon (the kind you normally eat with, not the measuring kind).

WHAT IS NEEDED?

For this recipe you will need to gather: two spoons, two small to medium sized bowls, a clean spice or coffee grinder, the 1/4 cup measuring cup, the 1 TBSP measuring spoon, cinnamon, coconut flour, cocoa, chia seeds, the Walden’s syrup

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 TBSP Chia Seeds
• 9 TBSP water
• 1/4 Cup Walden Farms Maple Walnut zero syrup.
• 1/4 Cup Hersey’s Special Dark Cocoa (yes, you can use carob powder instead, if desired)
• 1/4 Cup Coconut flour
• 1 dash of cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Begin by grinding 3 TBSP of chia seeds in a clean spice grinder or coffee grinder. You want a nice “flour” from the seeds.
2. Mix the chia flour into 9 TBSP water.
3. Stir well to fully incorporate this fake egg mixture, breaking up any clumps, and taking care to ensure there aren’t any floury dry spots. You want this mixed really well.
4. Place your fake chia-water egg mixture into the fridge to rest while you prep the other ingredients.
5. Next, in a medium sized bowl, mix together the cocoa powder and coconut flour until both are well incorporated and there are no lumps (you can also sift it if you would like).
6. Add the dash of cinnamon and walden’s syrup to the chocolate mixture. Incorporate well.
7. Add the chia egg mixture to the chocolate mixture and combine well. Now it is ready to enjoy a spoonful from time to time. This makes approximately 20 single spoonful servings.

Turkey Nuggets (GF, Egg-Free)

Recently, I re-visited a recipe for turkey nuggets I’ve made many times before. I trialed a few tweaks and they all turned out great!

Original Blog Post and Recipe: https://collectedgoodies.wordpress.com/2023/02/21/turkey-nuggets/

Trials:

1. I used this same “base” recipe to make one pound of ground turkey into turkey nuggets just as the recipe calls for; however, this time I trialed 1 chia egg [made by measuring out 3 TBSP of water, then adding 1 TBSP whole chia seeds to a spice or coffee grinder and blending the seeds to form a flour of sorts, then adding the chia flour to the water, stir well to combine everything completely, and then allow this mixture to rest a moment for the “gel” to form fully before using it as the binder in the Turkey Nugget recipe]. These turned out excellent!
2. I used the “chia egg” described above in another 1 pound batch, this time adding 1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper to the meat mixture, as well as 1/4 tsp called for in the breading. These turned out fabulous. They had some heat. While they aren’t “buffalo” by any means, if you or your loved one is nightshade free and able to handle black pepper, this is a great option and is very flavorful.
3. The next batch, I added celery salt to both the meat (1 tsp) mixture before shaping into nuggets, and to the breading mixture (1/4 tsp) without adjusting the Real Salt already in both. These also turned out tasting GREAT. For my taste buds I like the celery salt version better than the regular version.
4. I tried a batch just exactly like #3 above, only after mixing the meat mixture, shaping it into nuggets and breading it, as outlined in #3 above, for this trial I also sprinkled the sprinkle cheese atop and “tapped” it in before baking.
5. I made #3 above, but didn’t have enough coconut flour to make up another batch of “breading”. I did have about 1/2 the volume which was needed to bread this last batch of the left over breading from the trials outlined above. To this 1/2 batch of breading I added the sprinkle cheese I had made up already. I used this as the breading and it is FABULOUS too. They are all very different flavors but all are nice!

If you try them, be sure to mention which is your favorite in the comments below.

Now I just have to work on an excellent BBQ sauce or dairy-free ranch dressing to go along with these too. One friend recommended making a cranberry sauce dip

Yield: 1.5 to 2 gallon bags frozen nuggets

YIELD: approximately 120 nuggets or approximately one-and-a-half gallons, frozen, nuggets.

BAKE TIME: approximately 15-25 minutes, then flip, then cook another 15-25  minutes.