Drawing Down Stores: Wild Mushroom and Rice Casserole

It is amazing how buying food in bulk, drying, and preserving can catch up with you. We realized recently we were running out of room in the pantry, cupboards, and cold cellar. Time to draw down on stores, and when better than the heart of winter? The most enjoyable part is figuring out what to make out of the accumulation of things in jars, boxes, and bags.  Most recently it was a large jar of dried wild mushrooms that was hiding in the spice cupboard. Every time we had a few mushrooms left over we would slice and dry them.  Before long we had  seven ounces of chantarelles, shitakes, hedgehogs, lion's manes, morels, and so forth. That might not seem like much until you consider a pound of fresh mushrooms dries down to 3 ounces. It was a lot of mushrooms! A little Google-fu and a few options presented themselves: soups, stews, and so forth. Then I saw a wild mushroom and rice casserole.  I cannot remember when or even if we have ever made a casserole. We also had a 2 liter jar of wild rice in the pantry. before long a few random ingredients and an idea unfolded into this recipe!

Wild Mushroom and Rice Casserole

10-12 servings

Soak:
7 ounces of assorted dried wild mushrooms 
in hot (but not boiling water) for 45 minutes. While the mushrooms are soaking combine:
3 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
1.5 cups of wild rice
1/2 tsp of basil
1/2 tsp of thyme
12 tsp of salt 
in a medium dutch oven and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce to a simmer and simmer covered for 40 minutes. After 20 minutes preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt
1/2 cup of butter
In a medium casserole over medium-high heat on the stove top. Add
2 medium onions, finely diced
and saute until they are golden brown (about 10 minutes). Drain the mushrooms and add them to the casserole. Saute the mushrooms and onions until they are tender (about 10 minutes). Add the rice, any remaining liquid, and:
1 cup of table cream
2 cups of cooked brown rice
1/4 tsp of fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp of salt
To the casserole and mix them evenly. Cover the casserole and put in the oven.  Cook in the oven for thirty minutes.  Remove it and add:
1/2 cup of fresh parsley, chopped
and serve!

Serve it with a chick pea or bean salad to make for a whole protein vegetarian meal as well. Remember to save the water the mushrooms soaked in. The make a good base for stock or pea soup.

Simply Salad Dressing

In this day and age it is hard to compete with the massive industrial processed food machine. If you have ever tried parching your own corn, shelling peas for a big batch of fresh pea soup, or making your own jam you know it is a labour of love. The payoff is knowing where your ingredients have come from and the certainty that the person who grew them has received a fair price for his toil. There are some things where the effort is just too great for the payoff.  Enter Jennifer Reese, the Tipsy Baker.  She did the math, and compiled a list of where the investment in time and energy really pays off in, "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter." If you have not read it yet, it is not too late.

Salad dressing is one of those high return on investment items.  The ingredients are simple, preparation and cleanup are a breeze, and you will save an arm and a leg.  You can also skip cheap oils and chemical emulsifiers like Polysorbate 60 with natural ingredients that have the same effect. There is also a nifty little trick to emulsify your dressing I will relate below. Nyls will provides a handy demonstration of how simple this is as well!

In a glass one cup measure add:
1/3 cup acid (wine vinegar, cider vinegar, balsalmic vinegar, lemon juice lime juice, verjus, or a mixture)
1 tablespoon mustard (choose a flavour to complement the acid)
1 tbsp dried herbs or 3 tbsp fresh herbs (you can use leftovers from a pickle jar as well)
1 clove fresh or pickled garlic (again, leftovers from a picke jar are handy)
1/2 teaspoon of sweetener (sugar or honey, or a tablespoon of balsalmic glaze)
Optional: 1 cooked egg yolk
Stir together and let sit for a while if you have time. Add:
Oil (usually olive* or walnut oil, or peanut oil for an Asian themed dressing at the Hotel Cavell)
Until you have a full cup. Put a small whisk in the cup and spin it between your palms.  Between the air this introduces and the natural emulsifiers in the mustard your dressing will take its time separating.  A quick shake a few days later and you are ready to go.  Decant the lot into a serving bottle and serve.  Store it on the shelf.  None of these ingredients will go bad, especially together.

With this recipe in hand the only reason you should  have left to buy another bottle of Renee's admittedly delicious vinagrette is for the bottle.  You could pay for a salad dressing bottle from your local kitchen supply place. However, one worth paying for will probably set you back as much or more than the salad dressing did. Yet another way to avoid the man getting his pound of flesh from us foodies! 

* Remember that Tom Mueller found that the vast majority of olive oil on grocery store shelves has been adulterated with cheaper oils.  The taste and fridge tests are not reliable, so look for an oil that has been sourced directly from the grower.  You will pay for it, but not as much if you buy in bulk. Five litres of oil will set you back 60% less per litre than a single one.  Or go big with 25l and share with friends!