Meatless Monday: Cauliflower Marranca

It's not particularly photogenic, but it tastes really good!

A recipe from the original Moosewood Cookbook. Made a few changes - added tomatoes, used quinoa, measured the added fat, and added the crunchy topping. I'm not against fat but it does carry a heavy caloric punch. You need some to carry flavor and give richness but I see no point in gilding the lily, as my mom would say. The original gave no amounts for the fat (butter in the original) at all.

This is a good recipe to use up bits of cheese. Two cups is enough, but you can add a bit more, if you want to use up what you've got.

Cauliflower Marranca
(serves 6-8)

non-stick cooking spray
1 pound mushrooms, chopped or sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
3 ½ Tablespoons oil, divided
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
½ teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
1 medium head cauliflower, cut into florets and core cut into bite-sized pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt
black pepper
1 Tablespoon fresh or frozen chopped basil
3 cups cooked quinoa or brown rice
2 - 2 ¾ cups grated cheese (jack, mozzarella, cheddar, manchego)
¼ cup dry bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a large casserole dish with cooking spray and set aside.

Heat 1 ½ Tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and onion. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice, and the oregano. Cook until most of the liquid evaporates. Add ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Pour all this into a large bowl.

Wipe out the pan, add 1 ½ Tablespoon oil, and heat over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, cook for 30 seconds, then add the cauliflower and 2 Tablespoons water. Cover tightly and reduce the heat to medium. Steam cauliflower until tender, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Pour into bowl with mushrooms. Add chopped basil, cooked quinoa/rice, and cheese. Taste and add additional salt and pepper, if needed.

Pour into the prepared dish, cover, and bake for 25 minutes (35 minutes if the grain is cold). Combine the bread crumbs with ½ Tablespoon oil and mix until all the crumbs are moistened. Raise the temperature of the oven to 425°F. Sprinkle the bread crumbs evenly over the top of the casserole. Return to the oven, uncovered, to bake until top is browned and crunchy, about 10 minutes.

Let sit for 5-10 minutes. It is very hot right out of the oven and it's easier to serve if allowed to set up.

Best if reheated in the oven to keep the topping crunchy but it reheats OK in the microwave too.

Adapted from Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, Ten Speed Press, 1977.

Vegetarian Pastitsio

Here's a great tip for the vegetarians out there for adapting the traditional Pastitsio recipe I posted earlier this week. Instead of using 1 pound of ground meat, substitute 1 ½ pounds chopped mushrooms. Mushrooms have a savory flavor and substantial texture, making them a great meat substitute. You won't need to pour off any fat because mushrooms have next to none. In fact, I would increase the olive oil to 4 Tablespoons to make them a bit richer. The rest of the recipe stays the same.

Photo credit: By wikioticsIan (Mushrooms (cremini)) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Carrot-Mushroom Loaf

I suppose I should save this for ThrowBack Thursday but I decided it belonged with all the Meatless Monday recipes. :-) This recipe is from the original Moosewood Cookbook, a classic of vegetarian cooking. I went to college in the Finger Lakes and the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York was already well-known for its vegetarian cuisine back in the early 1980's . It actually took me until 2011 to enjoy a meal there but it still feels like the fern bars of the 80's, where you sit among the potted plants and enjoy a lovely quiche.

The mushrooms in this loaf give it umami, that meaty savory flavor. Mushrooms are a rich natural source of glutamates (the "G" in MSG), which explains why a grilled portobello mushroom tastes surprisingly like meat. The carrots provide some texture and a bit of sweetness. The eggs, cheese, and bread crumbs bind it all together. It's delicious served mashed potatoes or some fruit chutney.

Carrot-Mushroom Loaf
(serves 6, costs $8.25)

non-stick cooking spray
½ stick butter or 4 Tablespoons oil (butter definitely tastes better in this)
1 large onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound white mushrooms, chopped (a food processor does a good job)
4 ½ cups grated carrots (about 1 ¾ pounds)
5 large eggs
1 cup fresh whole wheat bread crumbs (about 1 ½ to 2 slices bread)
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed dried thyme

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a loaf pan (8"x3" or 9"x4") with non-stick cooking spray to grease. Set aside.

Heat the butter in a large skillet. When melted, add garlic, onion, and mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms release their liquid and most of that cooks off. Add the carrots, stir well, and remove from the heat. In a large bowl, beat the eggs. Add the carrot-mushroom mixture. Add ½ of the bread crumbs and ½ the cheese, the salt, pepper, and dried thyme. Mix to combine and pour into the loaf pan. Spread the rest of the crumbs and cheese on top and spray with non-stick cooking spray - this helps the top brown.

Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Increase the oven to 400°F, remove the foil, and bake for 10 more minutes to crisp up the top. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Adapted from The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, Ten Speed Press, 1977.

Easy Stroganoff

With the emphasis on easy. I'm laid up with a badly sprained ankle so my husband is doing the cooking. He's not exactly a gourmet cook and he doesn't want to spend too much time in the kitchen. I'd say he perfectly represents the type of cooks I'm trying to reach with this blog. He got to test my latest recipe, a very easy stroganoff.

Stroganoff is usually made with beef (if you want to impress, make it with beef filet), but I had some ground turkey that needed to be turned into dinner. Sometimes you need to use what you got (or what's on sale) and ground turkey isn't that different than ground beef. Generally, I'm not a fan of canned condensed soup because it contains a lot of ingredients that are far from natural. But, in an emergency, canned soup would work. My perspective is you shouldn't depend on convenience food all the time, but it has its moments. And, I offer a homemade replacement for the creamy soup here too, which is what I'd make if I wasn't stuck on the couch.

It's important that you remove the stroganoff from the heat before adding the sour cream. Sour cream (regular or low-fat) is not able to withstand boiling and it will separate if overheated.

Easy Stroganoff
(serves 4-6)

2 Tablespoon oil or butter, divided
1 pound ground turkey
8 oz. sliced white mushrooms
2 Tablespoons dried minced onion
1 teaspoon instant beef bouillon
⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet (optional; it's for color, not flavor)
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup (see homemade version below)
½ cup sour cream (full-fat or reduced-fat)

Heat ½ Tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add turkey and cook until cooked through and browned. Remove to a bowl. Heat the rest of the oil in the same skillet. Add mushrooms and cook them for about 4 minutes. Add back the turkey, dried onion, beef bouillon, garlic powder, ketchup, Kitchen Bouquet (if using), and cream of mushroom soup. Heat to boiling, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and add sour cream, stirring to combine. Serve over hot noodles.

To make a homemade version of canned condensed cream of mushroom soup:

2 tablespoons butter
a couple of mushrooms, finely chopped
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ cup low sodium chicken or beef stock
½ cup 2% or whole milk

a healthy pinch of dried thyme
a pinch each of onion and garlic powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Heat butter in a medium saucepan. Sauté the mushrooms until softened. Sprinkle on flour and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring. Whisk in broth and milk until the mixture is smooth. Cook over medium-low heat until the mixture thickens. Stir in seasonings.

You can also use this recipe to make other cream of whatever soups. For cream of chicken, leave out the mushrooms and use chicken stock. For cream of celery, replace the mushrooms with a stalk of minced celery.

Start of another year of classes!

On Wednesday, I'll be back in front of students at CU, teaching them basic cooking skills (and a few cooking tricks, too). They have requested risotto, which isn't what I consider *basic* cooking. But, it's not really hard either. We'll be cooking two recipes: Risotto with Chickpeas, Sun-dried Tomatoes, and Greens which has already appeared on the blog and this recipe for Shrimp and Mushroom Risotto.

Risotto takes attention and lots of stirring. It's not particularly challenging aside from paying attention to what's on your stove for about 30 minutes. It's more expensive than white rice, but not so expensive. I found Italian risotto for $2.25/pound which isn't bad at all. Risotto is creamy and rich without being full of fat. The starch in this short-grain rice dissolves out of the rice grains with all that stirring, making a "creamy" mouth feel whether or not you add lots of butter or cream. A little bit of fat is added for flavor but you don't need it for richness. It's a bit of culinary magic!

Risotto is a great place to use up leftovers: add some vegetables or cooked meat at the end. Add a little cheese. Add some cooked beans. Mushrooms. Risotto is a neutral background that backs up all sorts of delicious lead singers. Experiment!

The shrimp in this recipe is cut into ½ inch pieces, so feel free to use whatever size of raw shrimp is cheapest at the market. There are folks who instantly dismiss any  Italian recipe that combines cheese and seafood. This is is a regional thing - depending on where you are, they will either revile or adore cheese combined with seafood. I'm not from anywhere in Italy, so I'm glad to be agnostic in this debate.

Shrimp and Mushroom Risotto
(makes 6 servings)

Noodles with Mushroom Sauce

Cleaning out the fridge: added sauteed shrimp, roasted asparagus, kimchi, and crispy fried serrano ham

This is a very adaptable recipe. You can eat it as is, noodles with a rich Asian mushroom sauce. Or you can start adding stuff: a fried egg, some kimchi, sauteed shrimp, cubed fried tofu, bamboo shoots, cooked asparagus. Whatever you have in your fridge that you think goes nicely with Asian noodles and mushrooms. That's a pretty wide open category!

The shiitakes are more expensive than button mushrooms, but they have such a meaty texture and flavor that they are a fantastic meat substitute. Look for bargains at your local Asian supermarket, if there are any in your town. Shiitakes are often on sale for the same price as button mushrooms and there are great deals on all sorts of Asian produce. It's always an adventure, going to the big Asian market near me. Not only did I discover the cheap shiitakes last time I was there, I also found their sensational store-made kimchi.

Noodles with Mushroom Sauce
(serves 4; costs $9.70)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
12 cloves garlic, sliced thin
½ pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, rinsed, stemmed, and sliced thinly
½ pound white button mushrooms, rinsed, and sliced thinly
3 ½ Tablespoons sake or Chinese rice wine
1 bunch of scallions, thinly sliced
12 oz. noodles such as Chinese egg noodles, soba noodles, or whole wheat spaghetti, cooked al dente
3 ½ Tablespoons soy sauce
salt to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet until hot. Add garlic and stir-fry until the garlic is fragrant, about 15 seconds.

Add the shiitakes and button mushrooms and stir-fry for about 2 minutes. Lower the heat to medium-high and add the sake. Cover the pan and cook for another 3-4 minutes until mushrooms are tender. Uncover, add the scallions and any other additions you want and cook for another minute until most of the liquid has cooked off.

Add the noodles and soy sauce and toss to coat. Season with a pinch of salt if needed. The soy sauce is salty but the pasta can soak up quite a bit of salt. Serve. Good with a fried egg on top or with a garnish of kimchi.

Notes: You can cook the mushrooms and toss with the soy sauce but not the noodles if you won't be serving all the noodles at once. Mix ¼ of the cooked noodles with ¼ the mushrooms for each serving. You can mix them all together and eat them over a few meals, but the texture of the noodles is better if you mix them with the mushrooms just before you eat them.

Adapted from Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds.

Pasta with Mushroom-Tomato Sauce

3/4 ounce dried porcini - not much! But a little goes a long way. 

Besides making spaghetti & meatballs in honor of the romantic dinner in The Lady and The Tramp at my Tuesday night class, we made this vegetarian pasta. Mushrooms have a meaty texture and a rich flavor, so they stand in for meat quite nicely here. We add a small amount of dried wild mushrooms - porcini, specifically - to enhance the flavor even more. The dried porcini are expensive (it was a date night theme, after all) but you don't need much. The flavor they bring is really special. The students thought the pasta smelled and tasted divine. So, for your next splurge, get yourself some dried porcini and make this pasta. If you want to economize, you can make this without the dried mushrooms. Won't be quite as tasty but still good.

We used Baby Bella fresh mushrooms (aka cremini) because they have a deeper flavor but plain white mushrooms will work nearly as well.

Pasta with Mushroom-Tomato Sauce
(serves 4-6, costs $12.50 )

¾ ounce Dried Porcini Mushrooms
1 cup Hot Water

¼ cup Olive Oil

1 clove Garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons Fresh Parsley, chopped (about 4 large sprigs)
1 pound Fresh Mushrooms, cut into a ½" dice
14.5 ounces Diced Canned Tomatoes

½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Black Pepper

2 Tablespoons Butter
½ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese, plus more for garnish
1 pound Cavatappi (corkscrew-shaped), Fusilli or Penne Pasta

2 teaspoon Salt for salting pasta water

Combine dried mushrooms and hot water in a small bowl. Let soak for at least 20 minutes. Remove the mushrooms, squeezing gently to remove some of the water. Moisten a coffee filter or a paper towel. Place the filter in a small strainer over a bowl. Pour the mushroom-soaking liquid into the coffee filter to strain out any grit. Reserve the liquid. Chop the soaked mushrooms and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the parsley, soaked mushrooms, and mushroom-soaking liquid. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated.

Add the fresh mushrooms and cook until they release their liquid and it has evaporated. Add the tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine and cook until the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the heat. Sauce can be made ahead to this point. Reheat while pasta is cooking.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the salt. Drop the pasta in the boiling water and cook until al dente, about 10-12 minutes. Drain the pasta.

Return the sauce to the heat over medium-low. Add the butter, ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, and cooked pasta. Toss to coat and serve with additional Parmesan cheese for garnish.

Adapted from The Classic Pasta Cookbook by Giuliano Hazan, Dorling Kindersley, 1993.

More Bruschetta

Here's another great topping for bruschetta: pesto mushrooms. Very easy and simple. These are also wonderful tossed with pasta.

You can find instructions for making the toast part of bruschetta here.

Pesto Mushrooms
(serves 4; costs $7.00 if served with bruschetta made with ½ loaf of crusty bread)

1 pound mushrooms, cut into chunks
4 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons pesto
¼ teaspoon salt
pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add olive oil and mushrooms. The mushrooms will sizzle and will soon give off a bit of liquid. Keep cooking over high heat until the liquid evaporates and the mushrooms begin to brown. Remove from heat. Add pesto, salt, and crushed red pepper flakes. Stir to combine. Use to top bruschetta or mix with spaghetti.

Roasted Vegetables - all sorts

Roasted Veggies are a quick, easy and a very tasty alternative to steamed vegetables. Roasting concentrates flavors by evaporating some of the moisture and ups the ante by browning. Browning means flavor. I'm sure someone is looking at the above picture of roasted carrots thinking "Those are burned!" but they are not. As we say in the restaurant kitchen, they are well-caramelized. :-) Trust me. I ate them and they aren't burned.

Roasted veggies are great right out of the oven (careful! they are mighty hot) and they are great as a leftover. They can be added to soups, salads, omelets. Even a delicious snack, hot or cold.

The procedure for roasting is the same: grease up the veg, give a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper, and stick in a hot oven until just tender. Give them a stir halfway cooking to even up the browning. How long it takes depends on how big you cut the chunks of vegetable and how dense the vegetable is (carrots and Brussels sprouts are dense, broccoli and asparagus are not).

A hot oven and oil are key ingredients. No oil and the vegetables will steam. Not hot enough, the vegetables will overcook before they brown. But, once you figure it out, it's really easy.

Be careful when mixing different vegetables. It works if they will all cook in a similar amount of time. So, carrots and Brussels sprouts will work but carrots and green beans will not. When the green beans are done, the carrots will still be raw and by the time the carrots are done, the green beans will be sad, wilted and overcooked. Or plan to throw the green beans in after the carrots have had some alone time in the oven.

Here's some good vegetable choices for roasted vegetables. Roasting temperature is 400° F.

• Asparagus: 10 minutes for medium stalks, 5-7 for skinny stalks
• Beets: 30 minutes for baby beets, an hour for bigger beets. I like to leave them whole because they are easier to peel that way.
• Broccoli: 10 minutes
• Brussels sprouts: 30 minutes
• Carrots: 25-30 minutes
• Cauliflower: 25 minutes
• Green beans: 10 minutes
• Mushrooms: 10-20 minutes, whole. I don't like them raw in the middle so I cook them 20 minutes.
• Potatoes: 25-45 minutes, cut into chunks. Fingerlings can be roasted whole.
• Sweet Potatoes: 30 minutes cut in chunks
• Winter squash: 30 minutes, cut into chunks

Chicken & Broccoli Stir-fry

A successful stir-fry requires a number of things:

• You need to have everything ready before you start cooking. Things happen fast with a stir-fry because it is a high-heat cooking method. If you don't have every ingredient measured and ready to go, things will go south quickly. Garlic burns, meat overcooks. Not pretty. Having everything ready to go is called "mise en place." It's French for putting in place. Mise en place is how restaurants can turn out hundreds of from-scratch meals in very little time. And, it's not just for restaurants. It will make you a better home cook.
• You need to cut your raw ingredients in similar bite-sized pieces. Food needs to cook quickly and if there are big hunks of meat or broccoli in your stir-fry, or if everything is cut in very different sizes, it will not cook quickly nor will it cook evenly. You want the meat and veggies in equivalent bite-sized pieces.
• You need to use really high heat. A stir-fry cooks in 10 minutes or less. For that to happen, you need to get your skillet or wok as hot as you can. Of course, because you are working with very high heat, you have to be on top of what's going on. No answering the phone. No digging through the fridge for ingredients (see first bullet again). It also means that you need to keep stirring the ingredients to keep things from burning. There's a reason it's called stir-fry. The high heat is also what makes it taste so good, so don't be afraid. 

This is about as simple as you can get in a stir-fry. It's not sophisticated but it's quick and filling. Future posts will feature other stir-fries with more complex flavors.

Chicken & Broccoli Stir-fry
(serves 2-3)

1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon dry sherry or Chinese rice wine (see Note)
¾ pound skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into slices about ¼" thick, 2 x 1" long and wide (see Variations)
½ pound broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets, stems peeled and sliced 1/4" thick (see Variations)
1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil
½ - 1 teaspoon minced ginger, depending on your love of ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chicken or vegetable broth
additional soy sauce, if desired

Combine soy sauce, cornstarch and dry sherry in a medium bowl. Mix enough to dissolve cornstarch. Add chicken breast and toss to coat meat with marinade. Marinate in the fridge for 10-30 minutes. Drain chicken pieces, reserving 1 tablespoon of marinade.

Heat oil in skillet or wok until very hot. The oil will shimmer and ripple (but not smoke) when it's hot enough. Don't walk away while the oil is heating up because it can go from hot enough to bursting into flames quickly. [If this ever happens to you, don't panic! Cover the pan with a lid and remove from the heat. Do not remove lid until pan has cooled.]

Add chicken to skillet and immediately start stirring it around. Stir fry for a few minutes until chicken begins to brown. Add ginger, garlic and broccoli. Stir fry for another 5-6 minutes until broccoli is done to your liking.

Add broth and 1 tablespoon of reserved marinade. Cook for 30 seconds. The sauce should boil and thicken somewhat.

Serve with rice, passing soy sauce if additional salt is needed.

Note: Though we don't generally recommend cooking sherry, if you aren't old enough to buy actual sherry, it will do if it's all you can get. Just remember that it has a lot of added salt so you probably won't need additional soy sauce. You can also find Chinese cooking rice wine in most Asian markets, but it also has salt added.

Variations: Beef, pork, shrimp, scallops, or tofu can be substituted for the chicken. They will all cook in about the same time if they are cut into a similar size. Jumbo shrimp should be cut in half lengthwise. Tofu should be cut into 1x1" cubes. Other vegetables can be used, such as bok choy, Napa cabbage, mushrooms, or green beans. Bok choy, Napa cabbage, and mushrooms will cook in less time, about 3 minutes. Green beans will take as long as broccoli to cook.