And because this is a la food blog, have some more text and prologue type stuff to wade through before you get to the actual food and/or relevant pictures:
I love cooking. Not just for the adrenaline rush of being perpetually within an inch of my life - stuck twixt sharp knives, poisonous produce, and several flammable to flaming substances, as it is, but also for the life lessons one learns. For instance, a big lesson learned from last time I made the earlier incarnation of this dish: the oven works much better if you not only preheat it to 350 degrees, but also subsequently leave it at said temperature for the recommended baking time.
Andrew sometimes stays out late to do silly things on his bike with other lads and ladies wearing super hero costumes. When he does, he often raids the freezer upon his return. This works, because I keep the freezer stocked within an inch of bursting with intended-to-be-leftovers from my weekend meals.
One of the meals I rather liked as a freezer/microwavable staple was a quinoa lasagna that I cooked up a few months ago.As the freezer actually has developed a minor pocket of usable space, it seemed high time for me to revive the recipe. And by "revive," I mostly mean bastardize the prior bastardization of somebody else's adapted recipe that I found several months ago and saved in a shorthand google doc that required CSI and the NSA's top computers to reconstruct, and even then I didn't follow that recipe either.** Picture not featured, as attempts to leave freezer door open long enough to photograph would result in explosion of frozen food-projectiles out of the freezer and possibly through windows**
Canihuh-Cookie-Crisp-Millet Miracle Lasagna (With Special Guest Stars Kale and Avo)
Because Quinoa Lasagna is sooooo last minute. The original incarnation of this recipe (as you'll be shocked to guess from the title) called for quinoa. As anyone who's anyone knows, kaniwa/canihua/Cookie-Crunch-Keen-Krazy-Grain is the new quinoa. And millet is to quinoa what the 1990's Honda Civic is to maybe the Honda Fit. It's the same color and size. And it's pretty similar insofar as it is "healthy." It is of course, far cheaper, and a little less exotic, coming from plain old Africa instead of the New World! Also, yes, bird seed! But it gets the job done. It does clump more than quinoa if saturated sufficiently. Oh and while we're at it, I think there actually may be some quinoa in my recipe, since I combined a little remaining quinoa with the millet a while back so as to free up one of my storage containers. It's all small and round grain to me!
Additional substitutions ensued and thus I give you
How to yippee-hippie-dippy the crap up out of an already trendy friggin' lasagna recipe - Adella-Style
1. Start with Grain. Start your Saturday morning with a goodly dose of rice cooker symphonics. Decide on your small and round grains. It's the middle of summer, so let loose a little. Don't just limit yourself to a single color band of tannish and sandy. Start with canihua/kaniwa/can-can-cookadoodledowoop and then say "hey, millet clumps, which is actually not a bad thing at the bottom of a fake lasagna recipe, and it's a pretty color contrast with the canicanicocoapuffs." Get out your trusting measuring cup and scoop some canihua and some millet until it is full. Plunk in the rice cooker.
2. Add water/broth and start the rice cooker. Both grains more or less call for 2 cups of water to be cooked. Figure you've got a little broth leftover from last week's veggie prep session and pour the remaining jar into a liquid measuring cup. Rejoice, as you've now freed up a glass jar for future use and made a small area of free space in a fairly full fridge. Add water to make up the difference between "2 cups" and remaining broth. Throw in rice cooker with a garumph of a sploosh. Set rice cooker to "fast cooking grains" and push the cook button. As the rice cooker sings its happy "I'm cooking things!" ditty, go off to the grocery store to help overwhelmed family members find snax for young picky eaters about to tantrum all over their home. Buy some produce by virtue of what's on sale and what catches your eye. Return home ready to cook the crap out of this canihoohoowheee miracle millet. Feel relieved to note that rice cooker followed through on its intentions, and there is now cooked grain for fluffing. Fluff. Set aside.
3. Sautee some onions and mushrooms. Realize that olive oil cannot come out to play today. Oh yes, one of the side effects of this hot weather is that you put the olive oil in the fridge a while back and have subsequently stopped using it, seeing as it is now utterly inutile. Aaaand short of taking a hammer to the bottle or waiting for some period of time for it to reliquify, refrigerated olive oil is purely ornamental and/or a bludgeoning weapon should home invaders come for your tupperware.Consider alternatives.
4. AVO not EVOO! Avocado Oil! Holy crap. You have so been planning to use this since you tried it at a sample station at Haggen's a little while back. (Haggen's being the fairly expensive "local-ish" grocers that prices itself just shy of the Co-op without the yippee cool factor, but which draws you in for frequent visits due to the higher likelihood of samples somewhere in the store). Avocado oil. You've got some of that. You thought it'd just be for salads, but that makes no sense given that it has a higher smoke-point than the other oils and really shouldn't that be exploited? You could virtually set it on fire! Or at least fry things! Why don't you ever fry things? Oh yeah, the stomach aches. But avocado oil! It comes out of the fridge in liquid form. It pours into a tablespoon. It's a miracle!! And it's twice as yippie-dippy as plain old EVOO (although if you had a child and named it Evoo, would that not be absolutely yippy-dippy perfect? Hmmm. Gender neutral even... but would you pronounce it Eve-oh or Ev-uuuuuuu to rhyme with moooo? So many decisions)! Toss 2 tablespoons avo oil into a pan heated pan, let it warm, and then retrieve a pyrex snapware thingy full of chopped onions. Unceremoniously dump until you've emptied out the pyrex snapware thingy. That was probably about 1.5 small white onions.
5. Sautee those onions. Lick the tablespoon covered in avo oil. Repeatedly. Try to abstain from doing so anymore after you've placed it in a soapy dish in the sink. Wash down the tablespoon to avoid the inevitable soap inhalation. Set aside. Meanwhile, let the onions snap, crackle and pop until they smell amazing and are slightly translucent.
6. Mushrooms. Recipe called for about half a cup, but you found these earlier on sale! For cheaper than the bulk price. Given the price is reduced, probably the shelf life is short. Also you forgot the zucchini when you were at the store. So
7. Cottage cheese mix. Ok, if you were seriously honoring the kaniwa/canihua/cookie-crisp kale and avo oil nature of the dish, this section would be all dairy-Gluten-and-GMO-free raw paleo. You kind of go an eensy bit vegan by adding nutritional yeast in lieu of parmesan cheese. Mostly because you have the former and never bought the latter. The 2 cups cottage cheese though, well... that's pretty straight up neolithic diet (gasp!) Just for kicks, and/or to actually follow the recipes for a chand, add a medium egg to the mix and stir with a fork.Remember that the egg is raw and feel a little sad, as you'd been rather enjoying scooping cottage cheese and nutritional yeast into your mouth in between "stirs." Oh yeah, you also forgot basil and oregano, but you do have an "italian herb mix" that you got in the bulk section a while back. It being in a non-descript plastic bag, you're not sure what's in it, but think probably there's some oregano and/or basil involved. Maybe... stand by while you remove the sauteed mix from the heat and tend to...
8. Tomato Sauce. Defrost the Ragu pasta sauce that you left in the freezer after the last pasta meal you made. This mostly entails soaking it in warm water until it will plop out of the jar in sort of a tomato sorbet. Then plopping the sorbet bowl into the microwave for an auto-defrost. Shake your head in terror at the blood splatter explosions you've created in the microwave during said last feat. Realize later that you were supposed to mix the onions, mushrooms and sauce in the pan for a few minutes. Ad lib by layering them separately anyways. Considering cleaning the microwave, but close the door instead.
9. Ready the casserole dish. Spray some totally un-chic aerosol canola oil in the casserole dish you inherited at your wedding ceremonial potlock, and which serves as the only real oven appropriate pan for anything of size. Plop the grain mix out of the rice cooker, and smoosh until it evenly lines the bottom. Get a little carried away, build a few rudimentary sand castles in the millet-cannyhahaha mix, and finally get back to flattening evenly.
10. Sauce Layer over the grain layer. Add some mushrooms and onions with additional smooshing. Then paint on purportedly 1/3 of the purportedly 2.5 cups of sauce. You're not that precise, so figure on whatever it takes to saturate the grain base with something. Continue splattering the heck out of the kitchen. You may not paint the town red, but by god the kitchen shall be a veritable vermillion by the end
11. Veggie and Cottage Cheese Layers. Empty some aging carrots and cabbage from another newly liberated pyrex snapware thingy in lieu of the zucchini layer. Then add your eggy cottage cheese mix. Sploosh some more. Resist urge to plop your face smack dab into the center of the mix. Add another thin layer of sauce. Purportedly 1/2 of the remaining mixture, but really just enough to make the cottage cheese mix look sort of rosy.
12. Kale Layer! Oh yes, you will take it all the way to the level of kale. Recall that the "locally grown organic kale!" that just happened to be on sale for cheaper than all other greens (conventional or otherwise) is looked a touch... peaked, and sadly blanching it didn't seem to help the visual appeal. Decide that you might as well retrieve it from its sad little storage container because there is no way in hell that you are eating this as the base of your stupendous summer salad (vehicle for walnut oil dressing and whatever veggies you've recently purchased). Plus you bought more kale earlier today and it looks a lot healthier. Give it a deep whiff to ascertain whether it's oven-salvageable. Decide with more than a modicum of relief that it is quite thoroughly cookable. Phew. Because you don't have the spinach originally called for or the radish leaves you used last time. Actually, you have radishes come to think of it. They were on sale. But that would require cleaning them and you're pretty well committed to churning this lasagna out at this point.
13. Extra Kale. Add some of the kale you just bought because you recall kale shrinking up a lot when its cooked. Snack liberally until you've eaten half of the kale you bought for future salad. Wonder if it's possible to get kale poisoning and/or to turn green after too much kale. Recall stories of people turning orange after eating carrots and plan your wardrobe accordingly - purple kale undertones go beautifully with teal accents.
14. Final Sauce Layer! Dump the rest of the sauce and any remaining onions/mushrooms over the dish and part of the stove. This should be purportedly 1/2 of the remaining 2/3 of what was theoretically about 2.5 cups. You don't do that kind of math, but you know for sure that it isn't quite enough for your tastes. Retrieve a jar of leftover diced tomatoes (probably about 1.5 cups) and mix in with the sauce before daubing on the last of the sauteed onions and mushrooms. Don't neglect daubing the stove top. It will give you a nostalgic jolt of happy fun cooking times later on when it is thoroughly encrusted and requires toxic chemicals to remove.
15. Cheese Layer! Because you have shredded cheese, and it's kind of requisite for lasagna. Remember last time you thought you put about what was left of 2/3 of a bag of Tillamook shredded mozzarella. Try to replicate this rough amount, but mostly just sprinkle until there's a nice thin layer of cheese atop the saucy kale.
16. Don't Shake, Just Bake. Put casserole dish into oven (which you actually did remember to preheat to 350 degrees) and double check to make sure that the oven remains on after you've set the timer. Timer set for 35 minutes, during which time you go crazy chopping up carrots, onions, parsley, red pepper, and celery for various other meals during the week. Realize you will have nowhere to put any subsequent dishes or snapware containers and call it quits before having to call for an emergency backup fridge.
16.5. Check to make sure the oven is still on. Seems hot. Cheese is bubbling. This is promising.
17. Clean as you Go, but Not Too Much Realize that that arrangement you've reached with your husband in which you make the food and he "does the dishes" continues to be an illusory and symbolic gesture, because there is no way in hell that you can actually leave all of these dishes for him to do, what with them (1) being items you need once again for the fifteenth time that day, (2) blocking access to the crucial kitchen area that is the sink. Even if you were done with cooking, you require large areas of the sink for wetting your hair as the heat increases in the house. Dunking your head in caked-on-canihua and carrot residue is less than desirable. Weigh various scenarios of which dishes you can legitimately save for your husband to do. Inventory the number of dishes you have already done (coffee pot and filter; cans; bottles; snapware; slow cooker once; salad spinner and strainer four times; chopping board five times; peeler once; saute pan once...) Decide against throwing all currently dirtied dishes into a garbage bag until your husband's typical dishwashing window of "right before bed." Also refuse to do all of the dishes on general principle. Throw a few pots and pans into the dishwasher with anything else that can fit before turning it on. Scrub down the chopping board and other large ticket items. Promise yourself that you'll make sure to save at least one pan and maybe the rice cooker inner-chamber. Because, you may still do 70% of all dishes created in the household, but by god the husband will do that symbolic dish or two. Maybe it's a mere gesture, but it's a freakin' gesture, damnit. There will be buy-in somewhere!
19. More broth to bide the time. You've got time and a heckuvalot of veggie ort. Start the broth-making process anew with a slow cooker sped up to semi-fast on hot. Reflect on the exquisitely pointillist Monetesque visual symphony created by those little steam condensations. Gaze into space with a happy spittle of drool bubbling over your lower lip. Come to, panic, and realize you've spaced out and oh god is that burning I smell? No, no, just something from outside. Check on the lasagna and call it good.
20. Forget good. It's beeeeeeaaaautiful. And scorching hot. Cover with aluminum foil and leave unattended on the stove for a number of hours while you attempt to clear up room in the fridge to house it. Remember how good it is not to own a real live cat or child (Prince Florimund, the imaginary child-surrogate sphynx cat has no interest in anything but bon bons served to him on crystal or silver platters)
21. Cut and store. Several hours later, cut into ten pieces with a sharp and hardy knife. Feel pretty proud of yourself for dividing up the rectangles so evenly into servings. Double check your myfitnesspal recipe calculator to estimate how many millions of calories you will be feeding the husband who has spent the last four hours out on a mountain bike (384 a serving, apparently). Waffle between serving up too few calories with two squares or a heaping load of them with three. Decide that 1150 calories is still less than what the insane cyclonaut husband consumes at any given Mexican restaurant or buffet meal, and go with the three. Besides, despite eating more food than the average four person family, the husband continues to steadily lose weight, so he's allowed to err on the side of heavier density).Take three or four pieces and throw them in a pyrex container for reheating later. Liberally scoop up the remaining grain and kale that didn't quite make the transfer. Dish out most of the pieces onto rectangles of aluminum foil and wrap for storage.
22. Leave an organized chaos. You are compulsive. Such is life. You won't do the dishes, but you will leave them pre-soaped, half scrubbed and organized.
23. Reheat and eat. Another several hours later, throw the lasagna squares into the nearest microwave and push the sensor reheat button. Serve a burbling pile of food to your endorphin-addled beaux. Watch with fascination as he inhales it in six minutes. Sit at the table for another half hour while you eat and he alternates between dissecting the details of his new tire set up and staring at you blankly as you eat ever smaller bites with each passing minute. Finally relent with food mostly eaten, and retreat upstairs with him for an air conditioned evening shacking up with some netflix and amazon prime (because you're kinky like that).
24. Check the oven! Ok, did you ever turn the oven off? Crap! Run downstairs into the simmering mire of a torpid August evening. Apparently it is off, though you don't recall doing so. Check all the stove dials while you're at it just in case. Carry on with your remaining slice of evening completely forgetting about the major highlights of your evening routine. Rouse yourself to finish your evening routine much later than intended. Begin to wonder if your husband is ever coming to bed. Realize that maybe you left more dishes than anticipated. Feel conflicted. Fall asleep in a sweaty mess while your husband attempts to finish off the dishes that you "organized" for him. Dream about swimming in a sea of pasta sauce with tawny canihua beaches.
Recipe Approximating Can-o-Whoop-Ass Awesome Miracle Millet Lasagna:* 1/2 cup canihua and 1/2 cup millet
* 2 cups water or broth
* 1 bunch kale
* 2 small white onions, diced
* 2 cups sliced mushrooms
*2 cups cottage cheese
*one egg
* 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
* 1 dash italian seasoning
* 2 tablespoons avocado oil
* 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
* 1 cup diced tomatoes
Instructions:
1. Mix millet and canihua with two cups of water or broth in the rice cooker. Cook.
2. Heat pan and add 2 tablespoons of avocado oil. Add onions and leave until translucent and just starting to brown. Add mushrooms for another four minutes, or until just about soft.
3. Combine cottage cheese, egg, yeast, and italian spices in a bowl. Mix with fork
4. Evenly layer the canihua/millet over a greased 9x13 casserole dish. Take 2.5 cups of pasta sauce and layer about 1/3 of the mix on top of the grain. layer 1/3 of onions and mushrooms. Layer cottage cheese mix. Add another layer of mushrooms and onions and sauce. Layer kale. Add remaining sauce. Top with cheese.
5.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When ready, put dish in oven and leave to bake for 35-45 minutes. Cheese should be bubbling and just about to brown. .
6. Allow to cool. Subsequently stare incredulously at husband's magnificent competitive eating prowess. Wrap remaining squares in foil and attempt desperately to stuff into freezer without prompting food missiles to add to the already horrific food splatter that dominates your kitchen. Flee to air conditioned room and deal with all that later.
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