Fan Favorite Oldie But Goodie

The photos don't do this dish justice...at all. Trust me when I say that this recipe will become one of your favorites, just like it's a favorite of others stopping by this blog.

I first posted about this casserole in the spring of 2009. A lot of life has happened since then, but the recipe has been a continually searched one over the years. I first made it even longer ago than 2009, maybe even before my kids were born. It's from a delightful and unusual cookbook called the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. Unusual because the recipes were written by hand and the illustrations were done by hand...no photographs, no type to speak of, just warm and welcoming recipes with lots of them vegetarian, many of them celebrating cultures other than U.S.A. cultures, and ones that became favorites, like this one. Delightful because you will likely keep finding another recipe you want to try as you make your way through the book. It was first published in 1977. If you don't find it at Powell's Books (a Portland, Oregon bookstore that has a lot of used books of all kinds), then check Amazon or your local library, used book store, etc. It's a great cookbook to have on your shelf.

This recipe, Spinach-Rice Casserole, has brown rice with it's nutty flavor, spinach, cheddar cheese, eggs and milk, and some seasonings. Don't skip the sunflower seeds on top...they not only taste great and add texture, but their fragrance mingles with the other ingredients to make your kitchen smell cozy and welcoming. Perhaps the best part is that you will likely have leftovers...and they are even better than the first night. I just returned from four days in Phoenix, visiting family, and Sweetie ate leftover Spinach-Rice Casserole the first two nights I was gone. I think he would have eaten it the next two nights, but it was all gone.

Cook the brown rice first because brown rice takes a little longer than white rice. While it's cooking you chop the onion and mince the garlic and grate the cheese. I use frozen spinach that is already chopped...it just needs thawing and then squeezing the thawed spinach to get out the excess liquid. Eggs get whisked, milk added, and parsley chopped. Then you sauté the onion and garlic, add almost all of the rest of the ingredients and stir them together, add the rice and combine everything so that it can be turned out into a buttered casserole dish. After a sprinkle of both sunflower seeds and paprika, the casserole gets covered, baked, uncovered, baked some more, than cooled just enough that it doesn't burn your mouth. Feast on a soft and gloriously flavored casserole with a bit of crunch from the sunflowers. You'll be glad you took the time to bake this dish. So will friends and/or family because this make a good sized casserole (about 9 x 13-inches) that can feed quite a few lucky folks.

Spinach-Rice Casserole, based on a recipe from Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, 1977

2 cloves minced garlic
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt (More, to taste)
3 tablespoons butter (I used 2 tablespoons olive oil)
2 lbs. raw, chopped spinach or, as I did, use 1 package frozen, chopped spinach, thawed
4 cups cooked brown rice
4 beaten eggs 
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons tamari (optional)
a few dashes each - nutmeg, cayenne
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
paprika

Saute' onions and garlic with the salt in butter (or oil). When onions are soft, add spinach. Cook 2 minutes. (Alternately, thaw and drain a 10 oz box frozen chopped spinach. Add to onion mixture, but don't cook any further.)
Combine the onion mixture with the brown rice, eggs, milk, cheese, parsley, tamari, nutmeg, cayenne. Spread into buttered casserole and sprinkle sunflower seeds and then paprika on top.
Bake, covered, 25 minutes at 350 degrees F. Uncover and bake 10 more minutes.

Serves 4 - 6

Breakfast Buns

Bread baking has been on the back burner lately, but I noticed that some mornings I would love to have just a little something to go with the morning cup of coffee and fresh fruit. I decided to put together a breakfast bun that would work, and to put in some healthy ingredients, too. Most of all, it has to be yummy because when you can only have a small amount of bread, it should be delicious bread, right?

For starters I cooked up some oatmeal...1/2 cup rolled oats and twice that amount of water...and set it to cool. I also mixed some yeast, water, a tiny bit of sugar and some flour to make a poolish. It all sat out on the counter while I went to the gym, collecting wild yeast if I was lucky.

Later in the day I mixed the cooked oatmeal, the poolish, some milk, and egg and some more water together. In a bowl I mixed all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, salt, a little more yeast (in case no wild yeast were around that were strong enough), and a touch of cinnamon and added those to the liquid mix to make a nice dough.

After the dough had time to rise, I turned it out onto a flour board and kneaded in dried cranberries, chopped pecans and golden raisins. Those were stretched into a large rectangle, most of the rectangle was given a light coat of butter, a sprinkle with brown sugar, and also with cinnamon. I rolled it up, jelly-roll fashion, and cut it into buns.

The buns went into a 9 x 13 pan and lightly covered. They rose over time and then were baked in a 350 degree F oven until golden brown.

So now I had a dozen breakfast buns. There is about 1/6 of the usual amount of oatmeal one might eat at breakfast, whole grain, cinnamon for antioxidant and flavor value, dried fruits and nuts, milk and egg and only about 1/3 tablespoon of butter per bun, with even less sugar. Fairly healthy as buns go and very tasty. For one of the buns I added a small amount of an icing of confectioners sugar mixed with hot water. That made it a little too sweet, so I think in the future I'll stick with the 'plain' buns. Each bun went into it's own bag, then into the freezer for future enjoyment on those days when they will be the perfect thing to go with coffee and fruit.

You might think that I would want one every day, but today I had coffee, fruit and some plain yogurt and it was just enough breakfast. Normally I'd give you the recipe, but I didn't really measure a lot of the ingredients, so I'll have to see if I can figure it out and post it later.

R in the Month Stew

When I was growing up we were told that the only months that were OK for eating oysters are those with an R in them. Well, it's September, so the season for oysters has begun. Truthfully, I sometimes eat oysters in other months as long as they are local ones. We have companies in our area which grow oysters year-round in Tomales Bay, so there are always some oysters in the right stage of development to be eaten. Still, old tapes are hard to dislodge. September means I can eat oysters and so I do.

Oysters are an acquired taste. If you eat them raw, it is like a slurp of sea brine with a little bit of muscle thrown in. It's hard to imagine why anyone ate them in the first place, but once you get to like them they get a hold on you. I could eat them all the time. Unfortunately they, like most seafood these day, are somewhat expensive, so I save them for a treat.

Tonight's treat was Oyster Stew. Our market had jars of small ones on sale and I had green onions, celery, carrots, parsley, small red potatoes, corn and milk handy, plus some bacon. That, plus some salt, pepper and thyme is all you need to make a warm, hardy bowlful of deliciousness.

There are lots of ways to make Oyster Stew. I started by cooking the red potatoes. Mostly that was because I wanted to keep this a one pot dish. After they were cooked and draining, I used the same pot to cook some bacon, then, after fishing out the cooked bacon, I used the bacon grease to cook the onions, celery and carrots. After that it was a simple matter to drain the oysters, mix a bit of flour with the reserved liquid the oyster had been packed in, and then used that to thicken the milk/veggie combo a bit. Throw in some thyme, salt and pepper, the potatoes, the corn and heat 'em up. Right before you are ready to serve, add the rinsed oysters and stir. Set the timer for 1 minutes, stir again, and let sit one more minute. You'll see the edges of the oysters curl like ruffles on a dress. That's it! Time to ladle the stew into bowls and top with a bit of chopped Italian parsley, then dig in. Mmmm.

Elle's Oyster Stew

3-4 small red potatoes, cut into small bite-sized pieces
3 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 green onions, sliced fine, including part of the greens
1 medium carrot, diced fine
1 stalk celery, diced fine
1 jar small oysters
2-3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
1 -2 cups frozen or fresh corn - if frozen, thaw in the microwave
1 tablespoon fresh Italian parsley, chopped

In a large pot, cook the red potatoes in simmering water until tender. Drain and set aside.

In the same pot, cook the bacon until crisp, turning once or twice for even cooking. Remove the bacon and set aside.

In the same pot, sauté the green onions, carrot and celery in the bacon grease until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes, stirring often.

While the veggies cook, drain the oysters in a fine mesh strainer, reserving the liquid they were packed in. Rinse the oysters under cold running water. If the oysters are large, cut them in half. Set aside.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour and the reserved oyster liquid.  Set aside.

Add the milk, thyme, salt and pepper to the pot of veggies, stirring to release any browned bits on the bottom and sides of the pot. Stir in the flour mixture and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until liquid thickens a bit. Add the reserved potatoes, bacon, and corn. Heat thoroughly but don't boil.

2 minutes before it is time to serve the stew, make sure that the stew is hot, then add the prepared oysters. Set a timer for 1 minutes. When one minute has passed, stir the stew, then let sit a few more seconds. The oyster edges will have ruffled, so you know they are cooked. Ladle stew into bowls and top with a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Serve at once.

Cooking Influences

Many times the people who really like to cook have a special person, often a relative, who taught them the ways of the kitchen. In my case the influences were from both my Mom and Dad, although mostly from Mom. She didn't share her kitchen well, but I don't either. I remember that before she would show me how to make pie crust that I had to read about it. I think it was 3-4 pages in the Fannie Farmer cookbook. Then we talked about what I had read so she knew that I had actually read it and understood at least some of it. Finally we went into the kitchen and made the pie crust right down to measuring out the iced water in tablespoons. I can still make a pretty good pie crust from scratch, although I rarely do. Thanks Mom for all the cooking advice and instruction over the years. Do you, dear reader, have anyone who inspired you in the kitchen?

When my Dad died in 1994 one of the ways that I mourned was by putting together a cookbook with favorite family recipes. By then all of the children had learned to cook (some were more enthused than others) and often had collected recipes from friends and elsewhere that had little in common with the foods we grew up with. I wasn't sure that a collection of those old standards would be of much interest but went ahead anyway because I wanted to have them for myself.

Letters were exchanged with my Mom and interested siblings so that I included the most desired recipes and could include comments from Mom, too. Many hours were spent typing them up and organizing them by season. There was an index but it somehow was left out of the final booklets. When I was finished I made copies and took them to a printer who made up enough copies for Mom and me and the 7 others and they had a black plastic binding so that the book could be laid flat for use. The illustrations were copies from an old cookbook and all the illustrations were of children doing things like finding eggs on nests, tossing salad and eating birthday party ice cream.

Everyone received their copy at our family reunion the summer after Dad died.

Over the years since I've used my copy often and I'm pretty sure that the others have, too. Some of the recipes have shown up on this blog from time to time. When I visited my Mom last spring I found that her copy was in tatters from much use! Unable to find the originals (or the computer files) for the cookbook so that I could just have new copies made, I decided to create a new, updated version. That is one of the reasons that I took the InDesign class last semester. Now I know enough to do a good job with type and layout.

Yesterday I said I was going to have custard for dinner. Actually I had some leftover casserole, but then had custard, of a sort, for dessert...rice pudding. One of the recipes from the original Family Food cookbook is Rice Pudding. The recipe comes from The Boston Cooking School Cook Book and here is what my Mom said about it:
"When we were stationed in Boston during World War II, I bought my first cook book - The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fanny Farmer. It was my cooking bible for many years and provided the following 2 pudding recipes, Rice Pudding and Bread Pudding."

This rice pudding is the kind made with rice that has already been cooked. It also uses raw egg whites, folded in at the end. With eggs these days sometimes not being as bacteria free as we might like you may want to use a product like Best of the Egg - Whites instead of fresh egg whites. If the pudding were baked at the end there would be no problem to just use the whites from the separated eggs. Will have to try that sometime. In the meantime, here is the recipe for your enjoyment.


Rice Pudding

1 C cooked rice
2 C milk
1/4 t salt
1 or 2 eggs, separated
1/2 C sugar
1/2 t vanilla

Scald the milk with rice. Beat egg yolks with the sugar in the top of a double boiler.


Add the hot mixture slowly to the yolk mixture while stirring. Cook in top part of double boiler over simmering water until thick. Flavor with 1/2 t vanilla. Fold in the egg whites which have been beaten stiff with the salt. Chill.

(Notes: I folded the cooked mixture into the whipped egg whites instead of the other way around because my double boiler top couldn't hold both mixtures...it worked fine since I added the cooked mixture by the cupful and then folded. I also managed to overcook the rice slightly which gave the pudding a bit of a toasted rice flavor. I added three drops of orange oil which worked nicely in tandem with the toasted rice and vanilla flavors.) Serves 4 - 6.