Savory vegan breakfast hash...yum!

I had a sweet tooth on this rainy, Saturday morning and ventured to my go-to vegan cookbooks in hopes there was a pumpkin cinnamon roll recipe.Turns out no recipes existed in my books, so I turned to google search. I forgot how long they took due to the rising; likely 2+ hours. Blah. We weren't willing to wait. I sifted through my cookbooks again, and a breakfast potato hash caught my eye. Isa Does It Again described a potato hash that sounded up our alley, though I knew I'd have to take some liberties since I didn't have all the ingredients in her recipe. That being said, her recipe was a guide, and I ended up doing my own thing! The whole thing was really simple and took ~30 minutes start to finish.

My mother-in-law always gives us cans of sliced, cooked potatoes that we usually end up using for a soup. I figured this would be a great, different way to use them. You can use whole potatoes, but you have to dice them into fairly small cubes for cooking time's sake. First, I drained three 10oz cans of sliced potatoes and dried them with a paper towel. If they're wet, they won't brown in the pan like you want them to. I had everything ready to go on my cutting boards for ease so I wouldn't have to worry about prepping ingredients as I cooked. I sliced one small, yellow onion (would have preferred red, but none on hand), two Tofurkey Italian sausage links (you can get them at Trader Joe's) cut length wise and then diced, minced two medium cloves of garlic, juiced two small lemons, and had a tiny pile of my herbs and spices. I chose 1 Tbs salt, pepper, 1/4 tsp of smoked chipotle pepper, 1 tsp Fines herbs, 1/2 Tbs sweet basil, and a pinch of dill weed, and 2 Tbs olive oil for cooking.

I heat up my cast iron skillet with 1Tbs of oil on medium heat. I threw in the potatoes to warm up for a few minutes then added the sausage to cook together and brown with a healthy dash of salt and pepper. I placed a cookie sheet on top to contain the heat in the skillet for ~10 min. and found them nicely browned after. At this point, I mixed the hash pretty vigorously with a spatula (NOT metal; it will ruin/scratch the cast iron). I created a space in the pan and added the last Tbs of olive oil and quickly threw in the onions to soften in the oil. Be careful; the pan will be hot and the oil could splash. Hence why I say quickly put in the onions, or just spread the oil through out the pan and make sure the onions find the oil with your spatula. I also added the garlic at this point with all the herbs and spices except the sweet basil. I mixed everything together and put the cookie sheet back on for everything to marry within the pan. After about 5-6 minutes, I took off the sheet and added the lemon juice and sweet basil. I mixed one last time and turn off the heat. The hash was ready!

Ken and I were really happy with the result! Herbaceous, a hint of lemon, and hearty for sure. We both wanted more, but we decided to save the rest for another serving tomorrow. I've missed having savory breakfasts since eggs, hollandaise, and other traditional breakfast items are no longer on my menu.  This was a scrumptious, new addition to weekend breakfasts! I totally should have added scrambled "eggs" AKA chickpeas or tofu and a vegan hollandaise. That might be the next addition to our hash. Additionally, missing was diced avocado on top of the hash for freshness like Isa recommended. Usually we have avocados for our tacos we have 2-3 times a week (SO good. I will write a short blog about them). Regardless we were fans of this savory hash, and by the looks of it, so was Elphie!!