Casserole

Nov. 9th, 2022 09:52 pm
squirrelitude: (Default)
I think I want to start cooking more casseroles, I think partly out of nostalgia, and partly because it might be a good way to combine greens and grains (maybe even in a way acceptable to the kid.) I *want* to think they're a good way to make a lot of food at once, but I know that's not actually true. Soups and stews are the only things that seem to match that expectation. :-P

My mom makes really tasty casseroles but I haven't been able to get a very specific recipe out of her. One that she used to make I think involved sauteed greens and vegetables, cheese, and maybe barley or orzo, baked with stuffing mix on top. So I tried something like that:


Chard, shiitake, and millet casserole -- recipe and photo

Roasted mushrooms:

- 253 g shiitake mushrooms, sliced thin, including stems (were 300 g before spending 3 days in fridge)
- 80 g red wine
- 52 g olive oil
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp iodized table salt

Tossed together, spread on baking sheet, and baked on upper rack at 350°F, stirring once, until almost all darkened and losing their moisture/softness (about 40-50 minutes).

Millet:

- 1 cup dried millet
- 1-2 tsp olive oil
- 2 cups water

Rinsed millet thoroughly, toasted for a few minutes with oil, then added water. Brought to boil, then simmered covered until water absorbed, ~20 minutes.

Casserole:

- olive oil
- 24 g garlic, crushed
- 493 g rainbow chard (blade and stem together) chopped to 10-15 mm
- 1/2 tsp iodized table salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper (fine powder)
- 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 egg
- 138 g sharp cheddar (for mixing in)
- 70 g sharp cheddar (for topping)
- 90 g gluten-free stuffing mix/croutons

Garlic sauteed in olive oil until translucent, then chard added and cooked, stirring, until well wilted. Salt and mushrooms added near end.

In a large bowl, mixed millet, greens/mushrooms, black pepper, and paprika. Then mixed in egg and 138 g cheese. Packed into buttered casserole dish, then topped with 70 g cheese and the croutons.

Baked at 400°F for 20 minutes.

Red ceramic casserole dish showing a casserole that's about half millet and half other things, topped with cheese and croutons. There's a green spice mix on the cheese.


The flavor was good, though mostly concentrated in the highly savory mushrooms, which should probably be in smaller pieces or cooked into the chard more. The proportions were roughly correct even though I basically just guessed.

The texture is good, but it could use a *little* more cohesion. Next time, I could try not rinsing millet, and perhaps the extra starch would help? Or add more egg, I guess. Or I just need to compact the mixture more tightly into the casserole dish. Or... I wasn't sure that the oven time was doing anything useful (other than browning the croutons) since there wasn't any liquid in the mix. Maybe I should just half-cook the millet, or add water. (I'm not a fan of stock. It seems vaguely wasteful.) Liquid would merge the flavors more, perhaps, and steam the croutons a bit.

(The croutons are weird! I bought something at the store that claimed to be savory, and had the right sorts of things in the ingredients list, but the croutons tasted really bland. And it was only when I was taking the bag out of the box to rubber-band it closed that I discovered a packet of spices at the bottom of the box! So I hastily sprinkled some of that onto the baking food. I think they're trying to make a product that can *optionally* taste like stuffing... but it should probably be advertised that way on the outside.)

Definitely something to try making again, and I bet I can simplify and streamline it. I'd love to hear suggestions for other variations I might try!
squirrelitude: (Default)
Last week I was surprised and delighted to see a mockingbird beating the absolute tar out of what I think was a Manduca caterpillar. I don't bear any ill-will towards Manduca, mind you; it was just so unexpected. I didn't know anything ate those! The bird must have plucked it out of someone's home garden on that block.

I was also able to locate the nest -- very loud cheeping in a nearby tree. :-)

----

A neighbor was giving out some ham from Walden Local Meats, a Massachusetts meat-share program with good standards. (So this is from pasture-raised pigs.) It's "uncured ham", which apparently actually means "cured, but with less gross ingredients". I accepted, and now we have to figure out what to do with it. Ham has not been much a part of my life. It's too fatty for me to enjoy directly on a sandwich, but I fried up some thin slices and I guess that's basically the same thing as bacon. Amazingly tasty. The fat mostly comes out into the skillet, so we can fry up other stuff in that instead of using olive oil.

These days I also make "tempeh cutlets" pretty often -- slice two packages of it thin, then marinate in 2 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, and 20 drops liquid smoke until absorbed. Pan fry in copious olive and toasted sesame oil. Pretty incredible in sandwiches, especially with burger/hot dog condiments and sometimes cheese.

I made some last night and fried up the first couple in the pork fat. And you know, I think they actually weren't as good as the ones fried up on the other oils! That was a bit of a surprise.

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Such drought here. A lot of trees have brown leaf margins. Many lawns are covered in brown grass, which I guess is good, considering; that means people aren't watering them. There are watering advisories in effect but this isn't a drought-prone area, so I don't know how well-publicized they are.

Two rain barrels continue to be sufficient, but I'm also starting to measure how much water is coming out of the dehumidifier. It looks like 1-2 gallons per day, which is honestly a huge amount. Again, a terribly energy-inefficient way to collect water, and it wouldn't be enough for hygiene, but that's enough to keep a couple of people in probably-OK-quality drinking water in an emergency where you have electricity but not water. I don't think it's actually enough for my garden by itself, but it's supplementing rainfall enough that I haven't had to use tap water.

----

The hopniss poked a tendril out of the pot the other day and just sort of sat there for a few days, but when I wasn't looking it shot a good 10-15 cm up. Maybe because I gave the pot a good soak. I'm looking forward to sitting with the plant and learning its shape and how it moves. Right now I wouldn't be able to tell hopniss from wisteria foliage, so I can't be sure whether I saw one in the wild or not a couple weeks ago. A little embarrassing.

I've been thinking about how one would grow starchy root plants in a no-dig manner. Carrots and beets can be pretty much pulled straight up, maybe requiring the soil to be loosened a bit first. Potatoes can be done totally no-dig by piling up mulch around them as they grow, so the base soil layer remains undisturbed; the tubers form in the soft mulch, not the firm soil. But sunchokes and hopniss probably don't work that way? My best thought is that you might be able to pull up the plants in the fall and bring some of the tubers up for harvest, and leave the rest int he ground for next year. It's still going to be disruptive, but not as disruptive to the soil structure as traditional digging.
squirrelitude: (Default)
1. Use high-proportion feeding for my sourdough starter.

I've been using a feeding schedule that increases the starter 30% per day with no discards, then takes ~85% of it on Sunday to make bread. However, Sandor Katz strongly encourages doubling every day, which means "discarding" half into a discard jar in the fridge and then replenishing with water and flour. This is a little more work, but I often have a discard jar going anyhow for one reason or another, and I regularly make cheese and sauerkraut pancakes using discard. Katz says to discard 75–95% instead, and that this "encourages yeast"; he doesn't explain it thoroughly, but it sounds like the issue here is that otherwise the lactic acid bacteria become too dominant and suppress the yeast (presumably via acidity). Fair enough.

I'll probably do daily high-proportion feeding in a very small jar (maybe 50 g starter), then when I want to bake combine the 40 g of discard with 70 g each of water and flour to make what I believe is called a "leaven", which is left to ferment and is then mixed with other ingredients to create the dough.

====

2. Try using non-chlorinated water in my ferments.

Chlorine is an antiseptic, which of course is terrible (in theory) for fermentation. Some microbes are more sensitive than others, but I don't really know whether the chlorinated tap water is making my breads flatter than they could be.

I believe the city's water supply is chlorinated with chloramines, which are harder to remove (they don't just evaporate like chlorine will). Apparently you can neutralize chloramine with vitamin C. I guess I can keep a jug of that combination around without too much trouble.

====

3. Make heavier use of fermentation for preserving abundances.

Usually we cook everything down and either can or freeze it, but fermentation would be *way* less work. I'm especially interested to see what I could do with ripe tomatoes.

====

4. Keep my finished ferments in the basement, where it's cooler, so they won't get mushy even without refrigeration. (We'll see if this is true.)

====

5. Experiment more with salt ratios. Using a splash of whey, sauerkraut brine, etc should allow me to make krauts and whatnot that aren't as salty, since that would establish lactic acid bacteria colonization much faster, reducing the need for salt as a selection factor.

====

I'm probably also just going to feel a lot more free to experiment in the kitchen -- fermented tofu, fermented amaranth stalks, various vegetable pickles, maybe some nut cheeses. I'll see if I can apply fermentation to my millet-and-lentil staple as well. I feel like I have a much better sense of the essential processes and can try new combinations much more confidently.

In a different branch of experimentation, my interest in Asian bean ferments is piqued, so I may try natto and some other things I otherwise pass up.
squirrelitude: (Default)
I fell into a nice eating habit late this winter that has kept me quite satisfied while also reducing food prep time.

In the evening, I combine 100 g of millet with 100 g of lentils (that's a half cup of each) and let it soak in 2 cups of water in a small pot overnight. In the morning I bring it (still covered) to a light boil and then reduce to a simmer; when the water is all gone after about 20 minutes (no steam coming out) I turn off the fire and take off the lid. Once it has cooled a little, it's ready to use without getting mushy; by noon I put away any leftovers. (This recipe usually lasts me two days, and it's very roughly half of what I eat.)

By itself, it's an unpleasantly bland combination, but it's *fantastic* for mix-ins. Some bowls I've made recently have used:

- Brine from a jar of kalamata olives and celery leaves
- Lacto-fermented green tomatoes (rinsed), toasted sesame oil, pepitas, ponzu sauce
- Olive oil, pecans, sunflower seeds, pepitas, pecorino romano, capers, salt, and chopped wild greens
- Tekka and olive oil
- Umeboshi paste and arugula
- Caramelized butternut squash, salt, and olive oil
- Curtido, sauerkraut, or some other fermented vegetable and whatever else I feel like throwing in

I just improvise based on what's at hand and voila, a meal is ready in just a couple minutes. A++, would recommend. Only complaint is that it's easy to burn the pot, so... set a timer. :-)
squirrelitude: (Default)
...and after a bit of canning we now have 3 gallons of diced tomatoes put up for the winter, across 12 quart jars. It's definitely not going to keep us until spring, but I really want to reduce the amount of tomatoes we eat from resin-lined cans (which have BPA or BPA-substitutes in the lining).

These tomatoes are all from the CSA, and I'm curious to try them out. Many of the jars were made with "seconds" tomatoes that needed a couple spots trimmed off but were at peak ripeness. Others had somewhat less ripe fruits. One is made entirely from plum tomatoes!

I also really hope the seals hold. I have very little experience with canning, and made various mistakes, but hopefully not serious ones. (Biggest problem is that I put the citric acid in near the top of the jars, rather than the bottom, so some may have gotten pushed out. On the other hand, all of these tomatoes are destined to be heavily re-boiled to make spaghetti sauce or similar, which should destroy any botulinum toxin that manages to occur...)

I think I feel confident I could put away another few gallons. I'd want to change some things, though. In this batch, I did two rounds of raw-pack, which meant with the second round I was in the awkward situation of having a pot of recently-boiling water and a collection of room-temperature glass jars; I had to do some annoying work to get the jars heated to boiling in stages by juggling hot and cold water. I think next time I'll do a hot pack to avoid that problem, which will also have the bonus of reducing the water content of the tomatoes. (Again, they're destined for spaghetti sauce and similar.) And I'll remember to put the citric acid in the bottom, too. :-P

Incidentally, if you know of anyone around here making canned local tomatoes in *glass* who can provide them for $4/lb (is that reasonable?) I'd very much like to know. I'm willing to do the work, but it's also a problem I'm happy to throw money at.
squirrelitude: (Default)
Today I cooked with fresh shiitake mushrooms for the first time (and I've only used dried ones once before, I think.) I roasted them with sweet potatoes, olive oil, red wine, salt, black pepper, and thyme, then blended it all fairly smooth. Pretty nice! The mushroom is mostly a background flavor, where it belongs. :-P

----

This weekend I also took the fatty bits from some goat loin chop that [personal profile] elusiveat cooked, chopped them up fine, and boiled them with water. Once it was cool, I took off the fat layer, reheated it, and strained out the chunks. Then I prepped a wick (taken from a candle dismantled for other purposes) and the metal wick tether from a used up tealight, poured in the tallow, and let it set. I made a candle!

(The stored energy of the tallow is offset by the energy that went into rendering the fat, but this was an experiment, and if we had been making stock with the leftovers, that energy would have been "free". We have some beef tallow from a while back that we acquired that way.)

The candle sputters a bit, so I guess I didn't separate out the water as well as I could have. I might set it on the stove next time I bake something to remelt it. Maybe I can get some of the water to separate out at the bottom.
squirrelitude: (Default)
Some months back I discovered 100% buckwheat pasta, and found that it was an entirely acceptable substitute for wheat pasta (if you rinse it with cold water after cooking)—it did not have the strong flavor I remember from using buckwheat flour in sourdough. So I bought a bag of kasha (toasted, hulled buckwheat) and started trying to figure out how to use it.

It turns out if you're not making flour of it, there's basically one dish that is made of it: Kasha. The groats are cooked in liquid, and some things are added to it.[1] How to Cook Everything Vegetarian has me coat the groats in egg and toast them in a skillet (this apparently helps keep them from sticking together and becoming mushy), simmer them in water or stock until all water is absorbed, and mix with sautéed onions and other vegetables... and of course a generous amount of butter. Apparently butter is Important when it comes to kasha.

I confess I found my first batch of it rather unappealing. While the toasted groats themselves smell delicious, the groats being simmered in stock smelled unpleasantly earthy. Combining them with sautéed parsnips did not help! But I tried again, this time with leeks as the vegetable (and more butter), and they were fantastic. It turns out onions and butter both dramatically improve and modify the flavor.

I think a goodly amount of my aversion to the first batch came simply from how foreign the flavor was. So much of what I eat has strong flavors: Salty, sweet, hot, sour, umami, acetic, or rich in various spices. But the kasha had none of that, and I just didn't know what to make of it. (OK, so, it's a traditional peasant food, maybe I should have expected that.)

I've kept at it, though, and I think it's growing on me, or perhaps I'm learning how to work with the flavor in cooking. Tonight, for instance, I'm having kasha with collards and leeks, and I've found that a dash of toasted sesame oil completes the flavor very nicely.

Any of y'all have suggestions for different vegetables or other add-ins that work well?

[1] Wikipedia calls it a porridge, which... I guess? But what about when all the liquid is cooked off? Does that mean that rice is a porridge? There should be a more generic term for grains and grain-likes cooked in just-enough liquid.
squirrelitude: (Default)
[public post]

I grew some milk thistles this year for no good reason other than that they're edible, pretty, easy to grow, and might attract butterflies. (Those seem like good reasons, except you have to balance that against "ow ow ow ow" and having to track the seedhead development to catch it before the seeds drop. I think it's still a net positive, though.)

I thinned out the crop several times, and most recently the plants I pulled had finally developed sizable spines, at least 1/4 inch. I wasn't sure I wanted those in my omelette, so I skillet-fried a test batch in olive oil, with salt. Unsurprisingly, they tasted like kale chips: Oil, salt, green, and the Maillard reaction (or perhaps caramelization, I really have no idea.)

There was a minor problem in that the spines were reduced in effectiveness, but not totally, such that I continued cooking and eating the whole plant in spite of periodic jabs in the mouth, because oil and salt are delicious.

I don't think I'd cook this for guests, except as part of $POSSIBLE_PLANNED_EVENT, and I'm not quite sure I'd even do it again for myself, but it was a nice proof of concept.

ETA: It's also possible to cook just the stems and the lower parts of the leaf ribs, which taste something like asparagus. You don't *have* to have a high pain tolerance to enjoy eating thistle. It just helps.

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