struggle meals
upgraded biscuits, a broccoli recipe, and the struggle
Hello friends. It’s hard to think of a greeting that doesn’t feel like too much of a downer, but if you’re in any province west of New Brunswick, I’m sure you are suffering too. It’s bleak and getting worse almost everywhere and I just keep oscillating between being enraged, terrified, sad, and hopeless. Meanwhile we still have to keep working and taking care of ourselves as best we can. It’s a strange place to be in, because I recognize that there is nothing that can fix my mental state right now short of mass vaccination and cases going down, but it’s also not sustainable to be filled with anxiety and anger every moment of every day. So I hope that, while we wait for our vaccinations and for our governments to do literally anything helpful, you’re staying safe and doing whatever makes you feel the okay-est you can feel right now. Eating directly from the 1kg bag of Mini Eggs and watching episodes of Nailed It! isn’t a solution, but it does help me keep my brain from actively shutting down, so it’s something.
Food this week has been… difficult. Normally it’s both a part of my comfortable routine, and a coping mechanism when I’m feeling overwhelmed as it provides me with something I have control over and limits my focus, but if I weren’t so averse to wasting produce, I would have eaten instant noodles or sandwiches every day. When I’m anxious or upset, I often don’t feel hungry, so I just force myself to eat at what seems like a normal time. So instead of meal planning like usual, I’d vaguely think about what was in the produce drawer and just start pulling things out of the fridge to force myself to use them. This is what led to me creating a white bean and roasted broccoli bake: I had to make beans for something else and there were too many, and I needed to use the broccoli before it started to turn yellow. This was somewhat influenced by the white bean and tuna casserole I wrote about a few months ago, but I was definitely just tossing things together and hoping for the best, and it turned out pretty good! I’ve included a loose recipe for it toward the end of this newsletter, since a couple of people asked on instagram.
Roasting the broccoli first may seem like overkill for a dish that’s going in the oven anyway, but it provides a lot of delicious caramelization and you can have it done in the time it takes to prep the rest of the dish. I unfortunately forgot to change the cooking time on my instant pot from when I last made chickpeas, so my navy beans came out kind of mushy and overdone which didn’t make for the best texture in this dish, so I recommend that you not do that (if you’re using canned beans you shouldn’t have this problem). Fresh herbs of just about any type will do the trick— we always have parsley, and the chives, oregano, and thyme are starting to pop up in the garden again so that’s what I chose. I used cave-aged gruyere on top (because I’m feeling a little cave-aged myself these days) and broiled it for a couple minutes at the end to get nice crispy edges. Sadly the bread I wanted to toast to eat with this was moldy, so I ate it with… salt and vinegar chips. By my standards this was a struggle meal, but it still included vegetables so I’ll call it a victory.
After nearly having a breakdown at 5:45pm trying to figure out a way to use hedgehog mushrooms and asparagus in that night’s dinner, I remembered you can put mushrooms on toast. I’d used this recipe for creamed mushrooms on chive butter toast in the past and loved it, although I don’t follow it exactly— it’s mushrooms and cream on toast, you can pretty much just chop things and throw them in the pan and it’ll be tasty. While the mushrooms were cooking, I roasted the asparagus and covered it with some of the brown butter vinaigrette I made last week, and a handful of capers and dill. I also added garlic to the chive butter, because why wouldn’t I? (FYI, I used the leftover chive butter making boxed mac & cheese for lunch the next day.)
Hedgehog mushrooms are a little like chanterelles in flavour and texture, and are apparently easier to identify when foraging due to their distinctive, spiny gills. However they are a lot like chanterelles in that it’s seemingly impossible to clean all the dirt off them, but sometimes… you just resign yourself to eating a certain amount of dirt. Finely chopping the mushrooms helps them cook faster (and keeps them from falling off the toast), so this lovely meal was ready in about 20 minutes, even including the mushroom cleaning and chopping. Since I only had about 6 oz of the hedgehogs, I mixed in a few crimini mushrooms as well, and brown mushrooms have a slightly firmer texture so I loved them together. I think this would even be good without using cream, if you only have broth or soy milk. Save some of the chopped chives and sprinkle them on top— congratulations, it’s fancy now!
Since I have buttermilk to use up after making my mom’s birthday cake, I made biscuits to eat with a stew (the vegetable stew with dill from Isa Does It, sans dumplings). This time I remembered to try the ‘soft pastry flour’ I bought at Bulk Barn, in the hope that it would yield the fluffy, tender biscuit I had been promised by southerners. I still rolled the dough out too thin, but Jeff and I both agreed that the biscuits were better, though we found it difficult at first to pinpoint how they were better. They were still wonderfully buttery with crisp bottoms and edges, but they were flakier, and the insides were even softer and fluffier than biscuits I’ve had in restaurants. I’ve also made these previously with all-purpose flour, and they’re still very good, so if you can’t find soft wheat flour don’t let it discourage you from your biscuit-making dreams!
Also this week, while looking for something in the freezer I found the second chocolate babka— I had forgotten that the recipe made two, so that was a discovery that made us happy for several days. And on a day when I decided that I just couldn’t possibly think of something to make and didn’t want to cook, Jeff got groceries and brought home burger buns, and grilled us some veggie burgers on one of the warmest days so far this year. At least we have more barbecued things to look forward to in times ahead.
WHITE BEAN AND BROCCOLI CASSEROLE
1 pound or so broccoli, chopped into small florets, stems peeled and diced
1 small shallot or 1/4 of an onion, finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
optional: 1 or 2 anchovies
3-4 tbsp mixed fresh herbs, like parsley, thyme, & chives, plus more for garnish
2 14-oz cans white beans like navy or cannellini (about 3 cups), rinsed and drained
½ cup vegetable broth
zest and juice of half a lemon
salt to taste, plus ground pepper and/or chili flakes
½ to ¾ cup grated cheese to complement the herbs, like gruyere or pecorino, or a mix
toast, for serving
Heat the oven to 425° and line a baking sheet with parchment. Toss the broccoli in olive oil and some salt and pepper, and roast for 10-12 minutes, until browned in spots but still a little crunchy (to prevent them overcooking later on). Or if you prefer, you can cook the broccoli in your frying pan with oil over medium-high heat until the same texture is achieved, then remove and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a large cast iron pan, heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil over medium heat and fry the shallot and garlic until lightly browned, about two minutes. If using anchovy, add it at the same time and break it up with your wooden spoon. Toss in the beans and mash some of them with the spoon, then deglaze with white wine or a splash of broth. Add ¼ cup of the broth as well as the herbs, lemon zest & juice, salt, and pepper and let simmer for a couple of minutes, until the mixture looks thick and the beans have plumped up a bit more. Add in the broccoli and more of the broth, until it looks creamy and well-blended, not dry or soupy. Taste for seasoning and add more salt or lemon if needed.
Turn off the heat and sprinkle the cheese over the top, and bake for 8-10 minutes, until the casserole is bubbling and the cheese is melted. Broil on high for 2-3 minutes to brown the cheese further, then serve with toast (or chips or crackers) and the herb garnish.
Notes: I didn’t use the anchovies when I made this but I do think they would work well! If you don’t have a cast iron, you can make this either using a stainless steel pan that’s oven-safe, or by transferring from a pan to a glass or ceramic baking dish before adding the cheese.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. Additionally, I would like to note that for screen reader accessibility I have started adding alt text to all images I include in this newsletter, so if I forget in the future please let me know! Finally, this web form option list is not only useful, it’s also a ‘tag yourself’.