Sometimes, you just want the traditional ingredient

After eating a favorite of my Minnesota childhood, tater tot hotdish, while visiting at the in-laws' recently (my sister-in-law Katie made it), I had a hankering for it again when I got home.
At its most basic, this casserole (casseroles are known as "hotdish" in Minnesota) is ground meat (usually beef) in a dish with some mixed vegetables held together with a sauce of condensed cream of mushroom soup (straight from the can) and topped with frozen tater tots, which brown on top while the casserole mixture underneath is getting up to bubbling heat in the oven.

But hey, I'm in Illinois, where even the mixed vegetables are optional (so I'm told by a co-worker who knows this dish from his rural Illinois childhood), so why not have a different option for the meat? And why does it have to be cream of mushroom soup? Couldn't I make a perfectly good nondairy white sauce to serve the purpose of holding the casserole together?

The answer to "why does it have to be cream of mushroom soup?" is that it's easy. And as for the question about making white sauce myself, well, my sister-in-law did so for hers. And yes, yes I can make a perfectly serviceable white sauce that holds stuff together just fine. I do it all the time at work. Did I do it this time? No. And I won't go blaming the nondairy milk. I'll blame failing to measure out how much milk I was putting in the pan. I had too much liquid for the amount of starch I used, and I ended up with a sauce that was too loose, entirely unlike the consistency of condensed soup. My sauce was like sauce, nothing like the congealed mass that holds its shape while squooging out of the can. I'll also blame not having mushrooms. Didn't have them on the grocery list. I think I'd have liked the hotdish much better with mushrooms instead of the small amount of grated cheddar I desperately added to give the sauce a bit more flavor and body.

Why not have a different option for the meat? Well, no real reason, unless you're very attached to the flavor of browned ground beef. If I had been thinking straight when making the grocery list, I would have used ground turkey, but instead I decided to go out on a limb entirely and borrow a meat substitute option I learned from a vegan enchilada recipe on the New York Times website: crumbled tofu, cooked until it is browned and chewy.

The browned tofu has excellent texture, but I missed part of the lesson of the vegan enchilada recipe: the tofu needs to be heavily seasoned. I went straight from browning tofu to cooking vegetables and white sauce in the same oil. And I wasn't even patient enough to fully brown the tofu this time around. The flavor of my casserole is, as a result, a bit thin, despite my additions of other spices and herbs to the sauce. With every bite of tofu, I was wishing I had used meat.

Fortunately, I was not tempted to also spend the time and effort making my own tater tots, although this guy can tell you how.

I think I can revisit this process sometime after I've finished off the leftovers of the disappointing hotdish and try again to make a low-fat, possibly even still vegetarian version.

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Another try at breakfast strata

It's been quite a while since I toyed with the breakfast casserole strata in the kitchen. In the last documented attempt, the strata was really subpar.

In the new version, it's still two layers of bread with a filling of sausage and vegetables in between, all held together by an egg mixture and baked till the bread starts to toast.
The differences:
1. no turmeric
2. this time, I had the mustard I wanted
3. different sausage
4. different spices
5. cheese topping

"Let's try this again" leftovers-for-breakfast strata
 serves at least 4
4 large eggs
1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
1 tsp dried sage leaves, crushed (4 to 5 leaves)
1/2 cup chopped parsley (loosely in the measuring cup, not packed)
1 orange bell pepper, chopped finely
2 leftover bratwurst-sized sausages, sliced (I had chicken-apple sausage)
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp butter
6 to 8 slices dry bread
1 cup shredded cheddar

Oil 8x8 baking pan. Lay 3 to 4 slices of bread down to cover the bottom of the pan. Saute chopped pepper and sausage together in butter. When heated through, add parsley and sage. Spread veg/meat mixture on top of bread in baking pan. Cover with half of shredded cheese and top with 3 to 4 slices of bread to cover evenly. Whisk eggs with milk, mustard and salt. Pour over contents of pan, soak at least 1 hour (can soak overnight if desired to bake at breakfast time). Top with the rest of the shredded cheese and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 30 minutes or until eggs are set and top layer of bread is toasted.
This dish is great fresh out of the oven, but do let it sit 10 minutes before cutting into portions. This time, I made the dish the night before I wished to eat it and cut portions to reheat in the microwave for a couple of breakfasts for me and Andrew.

I'm getting more daring with the use of eggs and cheese as my sometimes-touchy guts will allow. I'll have to admit that this time, I still didn't get things quite right and the strata was once again not a Heather-friendly dish. I suspect there was something about the chicken-apple sausage that I wasn't digesting well because not only the leftovers affected me, but also the serving of sausage with lunch on an earlier day. Maybe I could have skipped the cheese topping, too.

Well, this dish was fun until it suddenly wasn't fun anymore. The flavor was much improved over the last strata, and I was glad to have a way to use up leftovers of chicken sausage and parsley.

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No exact amounts of anything!

Some delicious ideas from this month's cooking experiments, but no exact recipes.

1. Eggplant and potato stew with lemon basil

• one small Italian-style eggplant
• new red potatoes from Henry's Farm CSA box -- the potatoes are pink inside!
• chicken broth powder and water
• one sprig's worth of leaves from Henry's Farm lemon basil
• cook together over low-ish heat on camp stove for a very lemony-tasting stew that is almost too sophisticated for camping

2. "I don't feel like turning on the oven when it's 90-plus degrees outside" zucchini casserole

•  one pound of ground turkey
•  a whole bunch of zucchini, thinly sliced
• my favorite seasonings that go well with turkey: Penzey's Spices Mural of Flavor mix, sage, Lawry's seasoned salt, pepper
• one can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• the rest of the box of potatoes from Henry's Farm plus some more that were in the cupboard
• brown the turkey in a bit of oil, add spices, add potatoes, soup, zucchini and a splash of water and simmer covered until the zucchini and potatoes are fully cooked. Could all be covered and baked instead on a cooler day.

3.  Sausage and kale pasta

• heat salted water for a pound of pasta
• when water is just about ready to add pasta, put first ingredients into pan for sauce, then cook pasta while waiting for sausage to brown
• sauce: olive oil with 3 cloves smashed garlic and about one pound Italian sausage (I would have used local turkey sausage, but I only could find local pork sausage -- Twin Oak Meats sausage is very lean) is all cooked together until sausage is mildly browned. A few ladlefuls of pasta water and a couple handfuls of kale are added at the same time. Cook covered until saucy but no longer watery, then mix together with drained pasta.

4. Tourteletes
A modern-equipment take on tiny medieval fig pies. The original recipe in Forme of Cury calls for deep-frying the pies, but I decided to bake them instead.

• 1 part butter cut together with 2 parts flour, a sprinkling of water to bind into rollable crust
• filling: chopped dried mission figs, ground cloves, ground nutmeg, ground pepper, all moistened with a) water with saffron moistened and crushed in it and b) honey
• roll out crust thinly, cut into circles with large cookie cutter, place filling into circles and fold over to make little half-moon-shaped pies, seal pies and bake at 350 degrees until starting to turn golden-brown

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Playing with garden produce: enchiladas

This week's experimental dish was a way to make a large amount of yellow summer squash flavorful.
The contents:
three medium yellow squashes, peeled (they had tough peels) and chopped
1 to 2 onions, chopped
1 15-oz can black beans
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
about 16 corn tortillas
6 to 8 oz crumbled queso fresco
assorted garden peppers (poblano, jalapeño, banana, bell), chopped
cumin and Penzey's Spices Adobo Seasoning to taste
salt and pepper
22 oz can enchilada sauce (I found a red sauce that was all chiles and no tomatoes at the grocery store -- score!!)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Saute the onions and carrots till tender, then add the squash and peppers. When vegetables soften, stir in the spices and beans and cook a until beans are heated through, stirring. Spoon squash filling into corn tortillas, sprinkle some cheese onto filling, roll into cylinders and place seam side down in a baking dish. Pour enchilada sauce over all tortillas, spread it around to cover all. Bake until sauce is bubbling.

Upon tasting, Andrew and I found out that the hot queso fresco squeaks like cheese curds but does not melt and does not have much flavor. I might have preferred quesadilla cheese or monterey jack. This recipe made enough for six people and it keeps well as leftovers. Many thanks to Laura for asking me to look after her garden for a week in exchange for all the produce that ripened during that time.

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Revised recipes: Linsensuppe and Rutabaga-Apple Casserole

I've had these two recipes kicking around in my recipe box for years, but I've never been satisfied with how they usually turn out. Yesterday, I made them both and fixed them so they will make me happy when I eat them.

Linsensuppe (German lentil soup)

16 oz. dried lentils
6 cups water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/4 cup chopped celery
2 carrots, sliced (peeling optional)
1 onion, roughly chopped
4 peeled garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp tomato paste or ketchup
1 to 3 Tbsp red wine vinegar, to taste
salt
pepper

Pick out stones from lentils, rinse and drain. Put first 9 ingredients up through tomato paste/ketchup into a kettle and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 1.5 hours. Season with salt, pepper and vinegar.

Rutabaga-Apple Bake

3 cups plus one handful pared rutabaga slices
2 (3 if small apples) apples, cored and sliced (peeling optional)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp butter or margarine
salt

Bring rutabaga slices to a boil a covered pot of salted water. Turn off the heat, keep covered, and leave for 20 minutes. Drain rutabagas. Then turn on oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 1.5-quart casserole dish. Place half of rutabaga slices in casserole, top with half of apple slices. Sprinkle with salt. Sprinkle with half of brown sugar. Repeat layers. Dot top layer with butter and bake, covered, 30 to 40 minutes.

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A casserole for leftovers: strata

My mom makes a brunch “quiche” that follows the same basic strata technique here: lay out slices of bread, top with the filling, top with the rest of the bread slices, pour an eggy mixture over top and let it sit overnight before baking. Hers is topped with crushed corn flakes that have been mixed with melted butter. I love that crunchy topping, but I didn’t have any corn flakes in the house to add to this experiment with leftovers. Also, the point of this experiment was to make a dish kind of like mom’s quiche that was lower in fat and in meat (the original has ham-and-cheese filling), so no buttery topping.

The experimental recipe

Layers:

8 slices bread (I used oat bran bread I had in the freezer)

1 small onion, diced

1 tsp oil or butter

leftover cooked spicy Italian loose sausage, probably was about ½ of the original pound of sausage

3 dried sage leaves, crushed

6 oz frozen broccoli

8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced

½ Tbsp olive oil

½ Tbsp butter

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (forget lactose intolerance for a minute -- the cheese was on sale)

Grease an 8X8 baking dish. Cover the bottom with 4 slices of bread. Saute the onion in 1 tsp oil or butter and spread over the bread. Cover with sausage, sprinkle with sage. Cover with broccoli. Saute mushrooms in ½ Tbsp olive oil and ½ Tbsp butter and spread over broccoli. Cover with cheese and the other 4 slices of bread. Press down if the bread is above the top of the pan.

Egg mixture:

1 cup egg whites

a squirt of mustard (I don’t keep ordinary yellow mustard around – the mustards on hand were spicy brown or deli brown, but my usual choice would have been Dijon)

1 cup unsweetened soy milk (a little nod to the lactose intolerance)

½ tsp turmeric

Whisk all together and pour over the strata, soaking all the bread slices.

Cover the baking dish in aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If, like me, you are baking the strata straight out of the fridge instead of letting it warm up to room temperature, bake covered 25 minutes and uncovered 20 to 25 minutes until bread is browning and filling is bubbly. Let stand five minutes before serving.

Observations

My first thought on eating my first bite was “Whoa! Too much turmeric!” I wasn’t supposed to be able to pick out the turmeric taste so easily. It was supposed to be just for yellow color. That turmeric amount will have to be closer to 1/8 tsp next time. 

“Should I have added salt and pepper to the egg mixture?” I asked myself as I put the baking pan in the fridge before going to bed. When I ate the strata the next day, I found that the sausage and cheese had added enough salty and spicy flavor. I think I would go for some white pepper in the egg mix if I had an all-vegetable filling.

I don’t usually keep whole eggs in the house because the yolks are one of the many items that are not kind to my over-sensitive stomach and guts. I often use the Ener-G powdered egg substitute or substitute two egg whites for each whole egg in a recipe. In general, this dish was not good for me because of the pork sausage, eggs and cheese. Next time, I’d go for an egg substitute instead of any kind of real egg product, and my filling would not be meaty, so that the only tummy-unfriendly item would be the cheese. After this dish and a few egg-white/Egg Beaters omelettes, I’ve learned the lesson that in a dish that is mostly eggy, I just can’t tolerate the eggs. 

The reheated leftovers of this dish were just as good as the fresh-from-the-oven strata lunch.

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