Heavenly Mushroom, Onion, Tofu Casserole

[Guest guest]

Okay, Friends. Please have patience with me. I'm not even sure what to

call this, but I made it for dinner last night. My husband took one look at

it, shook his head at me like I was crazy, and stalked out to buy himself

dinner at Boston Market. However, my boys and I loved it. True, my older

boy talked my husband out of a bit of his meat, but it was like a side dish

to this yummy vegetarian THING I made. My younger boy wanted no part of

anything other than what I'd made, so it's pretty kid-friendly. I'm not

exactly sure what to call it... Jan's Yummy Kid-Friendly Vegetarian Thingy?

Not very descriptive... but tells you what you need to know. Okay... I'm

going to backtrack over what I did, and then I'll go through it and try to

pull out the ingredients. Here's hoping I get it right.

 

Okay... first I poached 2 boxes of sliced white mushrooms (I would have

preferred fancier mushrooms, and I suggest that you use your favorites, but my

little boys are fond of plain 'shrooms, and I wanted them to eat this) and

one huge sliced onion (I'm not sure if it was a Vidalia or Spanish, but it

was sweet) in Chablis with fresh dill. Please don't ask me how much. I

just took a huge Pyrex casserole pan, sprayed it with vegetable cooking

spray, put the vegetables into it, covered it with wine, and threw a few (maybe

several) sprigs of fresh dill into it. Oh, wait... I also added some

minced garlic, but I think shallots might have been even better. Then I stuck

it in the oven on bake at 350 degrees F. Then, I moved onto the next

thing. I didn't time it.

 

Okay, next thing... I cut up 2 boxes of low fat firm tofu into cubes and

let it sit for a while in a marinade of Chablis, reduced sodium soy sauce,

more dill, and garlic. Again, I didn't time it.

 

Next, I took half a cup of one variety and half a cup of another variety of

Rice Select Royal Blend Whole Grains and made it according to package

directions (you can substitute any grain or grain blend of your liking here).

Oh, I also threw a big (real big) pinch of saffron into the water. A while

ago someone gifted me with the biggest package of saffron I'd ever seen,

must have been worth several hundred dollars, so I'm a bit generous with the

saffron because I'd hate that lovely stuff to go to waste. However, I

know it's really expensive, so a small pinch plus some veggie broth might do

the trick.

 

When the grains were done, I took the mushroom onion mixture out of the

oven, drained it of most of its liquid, plucked the heavy dill pieces out

(left the little ones), added the tofu (drained) and grain blend, AND handfuls

of shelled pumpkin seeds! Then I mixed it all up in the Pyrex casserole

dish, and I sprinkled some ground almond and walnut mixture, and more pumpkin

seeds, on top of it, and returned it to the oven for... I don't know...

ten minutes? Fifteen?

 

Presto... Heavenly Mushroom, Onion, Tofu Casserole. Hey, that's what you

can call it!

 

And... for a bonus, here's the side dish I made with it...

 

Asparagus with goat cheese

 

My husband isn't a complete carnivore. He likes his veggies, too. One of

his signature dishes is fresh asparagus drizzled with sharp cheddar cheese

sauce. He likes asparagus steamed plain, but it's not a favorite

vegetable of my boys, so he tries to drown the asparagus in cheese sauce to

make

them eat it.

 

Eh... it works, but not well. I decided that the problem was not the

idea, but the cheese. My younger son loves sharp cheddar, but my ordinarily

veggie-hating older son isn't a fan of cheddar. He'd have preferred Swiss,

which my younger boy hates. I gave it a thought. What cheese do both boys

love? Goat cheese! Don't ask. I have weird kids. Still, I went with it.

 

 

I took a smaller Pyrex casserole dish, sprayed it with vegetable cooking

spray, dumped the asparagus in it, tossed on a few slices of butter (not

much... plenty of fat in the goat cheese) and a few sprigs of dill, scattered

some more pumpkin seeds over it, and then (I didn't even bother making a

sauce) sliced up some goat cheese and spread it over the asparagus. I put it

in the oven with the casserole when it was about half done and, voila, the

boys actually ate asparagus. Do wonders never cease? By the way, even my

husband ate this dish with his Boston Market meat.

 

Hope you enjoy the recipes. They were actually quite good and can be

tweaked a bit to match your preferences. Most of all, they were kid (even

weird kid) friendly. Go figure!

 

Ingredients (be careful to make sure I didn't leave anything out)

 

for Heavenly Mushroom, Onion, Tofu Casserole

2 boxes of sliced white mushrooms

1 huge sweet onion, sliced (Vidalia?)

Fresh Dill, chopped

Chablis (decent boxed Chablis is fine for cooking; don't use anything you

can't drink)

garlic or shallots, minced to taste

vegetable cooking spray

2 boxes low fat firm tofu

reduced sodium soy sauce, to taste

1 cup of your favorite grain or grain blend, cooked according to

instructions

saffron, to taste and pocketbook

veggie stock, optional

ground nuts, your favorite

pumpkin seeds, lots (pine nuts would have been better, but they're much

higher fat)

 

for Asparagus with goat cheese

asparagus, however much you want to eat

salted butter, to taste

goat cheese (reduced fat, if you can find it), to taste, sliced

pumpkin seed (or your favorite seed or pine nuts)

 

For dessert, we ate more " Cuties " Clementines than I can count. I hope

you enjoy (and can follow) my crazy recipes. Hoping that you all enjoyed a

healthy, happy Easter and Passover, I remain...

 

In Vino Veritas,

*´¨) Janis Abbe

.. ·´ ¸.·*¨) ¸.·*¨) ¸.·*¨ )

(¸.·´ (¸.*´ ¸.·´ `·-* *

Oenaphile, Logophile, Ailurophile, Bibliophile

" Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre

minds. " ~Albert Einstein

" A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. " ~Paul Simon

" I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints; the sinners

are much more fun. " ~ Billy Joel