THIS VEGAN SAUSAGE STEW (WITH DUMPLINGS!) WILL GET YOU IN THE FALL MOOD

Spud has been adding more vegan options to their inventory pretty regularly and recently, I discovered Gusta sausages which come in several flavours. I have barbequed them whole and skewered them with vegetables for shish kabobs and they are great. They come in a plastic casing which is easily peeled off. Yesterday I tried incorporating them into a vegan sausage stew with terrific results worthy of sharing.

Vegan Sausage Stew with Caraway Dumplings

• 2 tablespoons avocado oil
• 1 pkg of Gusta Vegan sausages peeled and cut into bite size chunks
• ¼ cup all purpose flour
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• ¾ cup nutritional yeast
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce or Tamari sauce
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 stalks celery chopped
• 2 large carrots, chopped
• 1 lb mushrooms, sliced
• 1 lb snap peas

Dumplings

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cashew milk
• 2 tablespoons avocado oil
• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds (or Rosemary for a different flavour)

1. Make the dumplings by stirring the dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.
2. Stir in the milk and oil. Combine with a fork until just moistened. Set aside while you make the stew.
3. Whisk together the ¼ cup of flour with 1 cup of the vegetable broth until smooth leaving no lumps, set aside.
4. In a large stew pot, heat the avocado oil over medium heat, stir fry onions, garlic and mushrooms until onions are clarified and mushrooms are soft. Add remaining 3 cups of vegetable broth and whisk in the nutritional yeast. Stir in the soy sauce, carrots, celery peas and sausage chunks.
5. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and let simmer stirring occasionally.
6. After 10 minutes add reserved vegetable broth and flour mixture.
7. Raise the heat under the pot of stew to bring it to a boil stirring until thickened.
8. Drop the dumpling mixture by tablespoon onto the stew one at a time and immediately lower heat and cover the pot without lifting the lid for 15 minutes to ensure dumplings cook through. After 10 minutes, you can turn heat off to prevent burning but keep lid on. Enjoy!