Not Your Muddah's Casserole

On my most recent venture to the Union Square Farmer’s Market, I found myself constantly fighting to focus on procuring useful ingredients. I get so distracted by the beauty and bounty of fresh produce, that I loose track of what I need to aquire for my next meal. That day was definitely one of those occasions. I arrived home with a plethora of gorgeous fresh and somewhat unique produce and I wanted to delineate a little from my normal grilled corn or zucchini and tomato salad. To step out of my comfort zone, I flipped through my handy Moosewood cookbook and found an intriguing recipe for carrot and mushroom "loaf", which was perfect since I had snagged a bunch of carrots and a bag of cremini mushrooms. I also gathered some sweet potato greens, pimento padrao peppers, and what is a trip to the summer green market without corn, tomatoes and fuzy peaches.

Moosewood calls this dish a loaf, but it is more along the lines of a casserole. The recipe called for superior breadcrumbs and for that I made my own with sprouted grain bread that I toasted and then pulsed in the food processor.

Recipe (with my augmentations): Serves 6 (freezes well and also reheats great! Who doesn’t like leftovers?)

2 cups minced onion

1 tbs. Earth Balance Spread

1 lb mushrooms, chopped

1 1/2 tsp. Salt

1 tsp basil

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp dill

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 carrots, grated (6 cups)

2 cups superb bread crumbs (made from sprouted grain bread)

1 cup grated cheddar (low fat cheese)

2 eggs, beaten

Black pepper

Black sesame seeds and chopped chives for garnish (up for interpretation)

Preheat oven to 350°

1)    Lightly spray a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with canola oil cooking spray

2)    Sauté onions in melted Earth Balance in a heated pan for about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, salt, herbs, and garlic and sauté for 10 more minutes.

3)    In a bowl, combine carrots, breadcrumbs, cheese, eggs, and pepper. Add the sautéed mixture and combine well. Spread into the prepared pan and top with sesame seeds (or your desired choice of topping). Cover with foil.

4)    Bake for 30 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered.

5)    Finish with chopped chives.

This dish was very filling and tasty…it even looked a lot better than I thought it would. This could easily be a main dish or a side and keeps well. The casserole was a complete meal. It had protein from the cheese, sprouted bread, and eggs, complex carbohydrates from the bread and vegetables from the carrots and mushrooms.

Mushroom are versatile meaty little morsels and are one of the lone plant sources of Vitamin D. They also contain selenium and potassium.

I had never heard of or tried sweet potato greens and was quite intrigued when I came across them. I removed most of the stem and simply sautéed them with garlic and olive oil in order to properly taste the dark greens. They turned out to be pretty "meaty" for greens and were a heavier denser more fragrant version of kale. For the peppers, I simply seared them in a very hot pan with garlic and olive oil until they blackened slightly. Finally, since I couldn't leave the market without corn and tomatoes, I made a simple composed salad with blanched corn, heirloom tomatoes, burpless cucumber, red onion, purple peppers, radishes, basil and a spicy garlic lime dressing (garlic, lime juice, olive oil, Melinda’s hot sauce, cilantro, salt and pepper).  

Au Revior summer…you will be missed! I am hesitantly looking forward to an intense semester and the start of my Dietetic Internship at NYU…. wish me luck!

As a side note…LOOK! I found a guinea pig in Henry’s crate.