Broccoli-Mushroom Custard GF

This versatile one-dish meal is delicious, also easy to make ahead, or in quantity for planned-overs. I made the broccoli-mushroom version for supper for our 51st wedding anniversary: we wanted to spend time on a nice long walk, not sitting in a restaurant.

This recipe features a custard that surrounds both veggies and rice. The cheese adds richness, and if you choose the feta-cheese option, it also provides the salt.

Here's the recipe. It's helpful if you have some leftover cooked rice. I always make extra rice, 6 cups at a time in my rice cooker. The cooked rice keeps for several days in the fridge, or forever in the freezer. If you don't have leftover rice, cook some up right away!

This recipe makes about 6 servings.

Ingredients. All measures are approximate. This is a very flexible recipe! (see below for variations)

1 1/2 pounds broccoli
1 pound brown mushrooms
1 T butter
3 cups cooked rice. I think white is nicer in this recipe. I use short-grain.
1 cup feta cheese crumbles
3 extra large eggs or equivalent
1 cup whipping cream
2 1/2 cups whole milk
Whole nutmeg (optional)

1. Pre-cook the broccoli by steaming it briefly in the microwave. Chop into bite-size pieces.
2. Coarsely chop the mushrooms, then saute in the butter until beginning to brown all over.
3. Heat the rice until soft in a 9x13 glass baking dish in the microwave, about 2 minutes.
4. Toss the broccoli, mushrooms, and rice together in the baking dish.
5. Sprinkle the feta cheese over the mixture. Use more if you'd like.
6. Beat the eggs well, then add the cream and milk and beat again. Pour over the contents of the baking dish.
7. Grate nutmeg over the top (optional)

Bake at 350 for nearly an hour. Check after 50 minutes to see if it's cooked to the center.

Variations:

• Use other vegetables. Sauteed greens, strips of pre-steamed carrots, sauteed onion, whole cloves of garlic, strips of sauteed pepper (red bell would be particularly nice, or if you want some zip, sauteed chilis).
• Use parmesan instead of feta. You'll probably want to sprinkle salt on the rice while warming it unless you use feta.
• Add meat, such as roasted chicken or pork; or add canned salmon. Increase the milk by 1/2 cup.
• Sprinkle the top with crumbs (no longer GF) or ground pecans or ground hazelnuts.
• Add 1/2 cup pumpkin or winter squash, cooked and pureed, to the custard before pouring it over the rice and vegetables. 
• For added piquancy, use sour cream instead of whipping cream. 
• Make in individual casseroles, adjusting cooking time. 
• Serve on a bed of sauteed greens. Or serve with a green salad, or fruit salad. 

Whole-chicken and garden soup

We've eaten this soup all winter. This is a small variation on Creamy Chicken Soup because when I got home with the cream I found it spoiled. Improvise! (I am not going to make an 8-mile 40-minute round trip for cream.) This soup takes days but very little labor.

Put the whole chicken into the crockpot, cover (or almost cover) with water, set the pot on low, cover with the lid, and plan something else for dinner for the next few days.

When the chicken is thoroughly cooked, after 24-30 hours more or less, lift out pieces of meat for immediate use or freeze them. Discard the skin. Leave the bones and more of the meat in the pot for this recipe. Cook them for one more day.

On the third day, discard the bones and skin. Return any meat to the pot. Add veggies, such as:

• leftover baked squash
• dried summer squash pieces
• dried mushrooms, or fresh
• leftover mashed potatoes
• roasted veggies (potatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, etc) - or they can be raw
• chopped celery, or freeze-dried celery
• fresh chopped onion
• good salt to taste

Add water to the rim and return the lid to the crockpot. Let everything cook on high until heated, or on low overnight if the veggies are fresh and need more cooking. 

Using a Vita-Mix, food processor, or wand, homogenize everything that's in the pot.

Serve steaming hot. Add cream (half cup?) just before serving, or at the table.

Serving idea: Heat up some red pepper flakes in a little dish of olive oil in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. Using a teaspoon, drizzle this mixture over the soup in pleasing patterns. Don't mix it in - the variations in taste of hot soup, cold cream, and spicy oil make a nice little culinary adventure.  Serves about 8.

This soup can be the basis of many meals in the days to come, or can be frozen for eating at home or on the road.

Southwest Baked Beans

I wanted to do something with my aging Anasazi beans. They're so beautiful, and have looked great in a special jar I display them in, but they needed to be used before they wouldn't cook up tender anymore.

So I looked up recipes online, and kept running into baked beans. I love baked beans!

But these are Anasazi beans and deserve a Southwestern presentation. So last night I adapted a baked bean recipe to Anasazis. The result is something that is clearly a cousin to Boston Baked Beans, but is also distinctively Southwestern.

Southwestern Baked Beans

2 cups beans - I used Anasazi, but other beans that stay firm would do. Rinse then cover the beans in water. Soak for 24-48 hours, then cook on low in a crockpot for another half-day or day or so. I used the same water so I wouldn't lose nutrients.

3-4 strips good quality thick bacon or side pork.

Line the bottom of a large glass brownie pan (9x13 works) with the bacon, then pour the beans, including liquid, over it.

1 large onion, 5 cloves garlic, 1/2-1 cup medium-heat chilies (roasted or canned or freeze-dried), carrots (optional)

Chop a large onion into dime-sized pieces, dice the garlic fine or smash, chop the chilies fine, grate the carrots if you want to use them.

Add all these veggies to the top of the baking dish. Don't stir yet.

1 - 1 1/2 cups tomatoes: Use canned crushed, diced fresh, or sauce. Pour the tomatoes over everything else.

Salt is optional. I use a good quality salt called Real Salt. Sprinkle on whatever your taste suggests.

Now stir. Be careful not to disturb the bacon. You want the veggies underwater (or under tomato sauce). You don't need to make it uniform - a light top-stirring will do.

Put in a 275 degree oven - no need to preheat. Check it after 2-3 hours, and if the top is drying out, top-stir to moisten everything. If the liquid is thick at this point, add water.

Continue cooking until a deep and pleasant aroma escapes the oven next time you look. You want the onions to be cooked well and the sauce to be somewhat thick. (It won't thicken all the way till it cools off.) Remove it from the oven. Total cooking time is perhaps 4 hours. Resist eating until mealtime despite the amazing vapors. Or go ahead and try some. Hmmm!

When you serve it, stir in the bacon, breaking up the pieces as needed. If you love bacon, you can also top the whole panful after adding the tomatoes and let it cook right on top. This first time I used side pork, which was rather chunky, so it's blended throughout the beans now.

I'm packaging half of it for the freezer. Serves about 4-6, and makes a meal if you've added the carrots.

Super soup, real creamy cream of chicken

This recipe is from +Jenny McGruther, modified a bit. Here's my version (but check hers out).

1. Buy a plump chicken, the best quality you can afford.
2. Place the chicken in a large crockpot, cover it completely with cold water, and turn the pot on low.
3. Lay various veggies on top: carrots including tops, whole stalks of celery including leaves (but cut in half if they won't fit), onions, leeks, kale or chard stems, or whatever is available. Don't chop them or mix them in.
4. Cover the pot and ignore it for 24 or more hours.
5. Remove the veggies and discard the inedible parts.
6. Remove the chicken and debone, carefully retaining as much of the broth as possible.
7. Turn the broth, still in the crockpot, on high.
8. Saving half the chicken for another recipe, place the boned chicken and salvaged cooked veggies into a food processor and whirr till it is almost smooth. (I had to do this in batches).
9. Add the resulting paste to the broth and stir it in thoroughly.
10. Heat till steamy.
11. Stir in a cup of heavy cream. I preheated the cream in the microwave because my crockpot is slow to heat up.
12. Mix 3-4 egg yolks (depending on size - I used duck eggs, and with their large yolks I found I needed only 2 yolks). Use a wire whisk. Add some of the hot stock mixture to temper the yolks, then stir them into the soup.
13. Heat the soup to close to a full boil.
14. Serve. I added an extra tablespoon of cream in a swirl. We ate the soup with roasted veggies (potatoes, rutabagas, and parsnips sprinkled with olive oil and good salt and cooked and browned in a 400 degree oven).

This is a smooth, rich, satisfying soup full of flavor and real food. The two of us will get two meals each out of it. The flavor is so full that more cream or even water could be added to stretch it. Thanks, Jenny!

Garden update - July 25, 2010

Today we ate something from our garden. I reached deep into the beans, where I thought some greens would like the shade and the extra nitrogen, and broke of two 4" leaves of lettuce. They were tasty and too soon gone.

But they are a start. This was literally the first of the harvest, though there are signs of more to come. How soon?

The squash are in bud, with some female flowers emerging. The plants look awfully small to me. How can they have enough leaf area to grow a squash fruit of any size? We'll see.

Both tomato plants have blossoms, but I haven't seen any newly set fruits for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the three tomatoes that have appeared are still hard and green and in the case of the Early Girl, rather small.

The eggplant has no blooms, but it is growing leaves abundantly. I decided to move it to a section of the trellised area that is close to the house, so it gets reflected as well as direct sunlight now. That seems to have made all the difference.

Beets are making leaves, as are carrots and turnips. They are still tiny. Spinaches are growing but surely it will be a month before they will be eating size. Chard is finally emerging, and parsley is still not visible. I tucked in a few extra squash seeds of various types, and they are all growing smartly. It is impossible to believe they will have time to mature and grow fruit, though, unless we have many hot days.

Down in the yard, the baby jerusalem artichoke is growing taller each day. It is beginning to send forth its fourth set of leaves, as of this morning. I figure every leaf means more energy for the plant and yet faster growth. We figure the tubers will be ready in the winter, and will stay happily in the ground even after frost, so  right now the big deal is to get them to survive snails and deer. If they do, we'll have yummy tubers for months this winter.

Today the porch is registering over 80, so we'll get some good growth. I would feel better if the tomatoes were setting fruit - I would know I'm doing it right.

Farmers' Market Fare - Greens and pork

A couple of years ago we were driving around the small farms of Skagit County here in Washington State, and found a cheese shop (essentially a shack) by the side of a small rural road. We stopped in and discovered Samish Bay Cheese Company. We were delighted to learn that they milk their own cows, that the cows are on pasture, and that they also had pigs on pasture, supplemented with whey from the cheese-making.

We indulged in some of their strong gouda, which ran out too fast. We also bought some bacon, the best bacon I've tasted.

Not many weeks later, we discovered them at the Anacortes Farmers' Market. Now we see them regularly. Last week we bought some side pork from them to go with the armload of greens we bought from Moondance Farm. Here's what happened next:

Greens and Side Pork 

1 lb or so grass-fed side pork
3 lbs or so mixed greens, such as collards, kale, beets, spinach, etc
1 bunch garlic scapes
3 T or more balsamic vinegar (or according to taste)
½ t coarse sea salt

On coming home from the farmers’ market, leave the side pork on the counter to come to room temperature. Leave all the greens on the counter, or wash if gritty. With scissors or your hands, snip or tear the greens into strips about an inch wide. Chop the coarsest stems about an inch long. Cut the garlic scapes, including the buds, an inch long or so. Snip the side pork with scissors into about ¼-inch strips. Saute the strips till some of the fat melts, then add the garlic scapes and stem pieces and cook for a minute or two. Add the prepared greens, a handful at a time, and stir until hot and wilted before adding more. When all the greens have been added to the pot and stirred well, add a cup of water and cover. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until as done as you like. This dish is nicest when it has been cooked thoroughly.  Remove the lid, stir a few more times, and add the balsamic vinegar and salt. Stir some more, taste, adjust the amount of vinegar and salt, and serve with a yellow vegetable. Can also be served over rice. Leftovers, if any, are excellent for breakfast the next day.

Earthy veggies

It's a wonder there's any dirt left in California, where our store-bought veggies come from. All the grit and dirt that is lodged in celery, chard, leeks, spinach and other greens when they arrive in my kitchen, multiplied by all those in this store and other stores, might amount to several inches of good soil.

I don't know where it goes - whether into sewer settling tanks or my plumbing traps. I just know my veggies need to be free of it or we're going to have a miserably crunchy experience at dinner tonight, and I'm going to fear for my teeth.

Which is where H2 comes in. This is the old veteran workhorse cleaner Basic H in a slightly modified form. It still works on veggies to release the grit.

Here's what I do: fill the sink or a large bowl with cold water, measure in exactly 1 drop of H2, and then add the veggies (either in batches or all together, depending on quantity). I remove them immediately and rinse them. A satisfying layer of dirt is usually visible on the bottom of the container.

For many-dimensioned veggies with deep crevices like celery and leeks, separating the stalks before washing them only makes sense.

When I first started doing this, decades upon decades ago (in 1971), I did an experiment. I took a bag of triple-washed spinach and shook it into a large bowl of cold water, shook it around a bit, and looked in the bottom. No grit - of course not, since this was already-washed spinach.

Then I added a drop of Basic H, shook the spinach in the water some more, lifted it out - and was delighted to see a layer of silt in the bowl.

That's when I took up the practice of washing all the produce that comes into the house in Basic H, whether it seems dirty or not. Cold water, rinse quickly, dry, and refrigerate. It works for fruits too - what you can't see (pesticides?) can hurt you.

A warning about H2: it is as concentrated as it can be. There's no water in it. ONE DROP is all you need. I don't want to strip the vitamins out of the produce, so one drop, cold water, a quick rinse, and done!

Another comment: H2 is not a veggie wash, it is a cleaner. You can use it to clean everything, but again, be frugal - a small amount goes a long way. The literature that comes with it will explain that. It's not toxic, not dangerous, just undiluted.

To order Basic H2, visit this Shaklee website.