Shiitake Mushroom “Bacon” Crumbles

Last year, Jen and I decided to increase the vegetarianism in our diets. We didn’t cut out animal products entirely, but we stopped buying meat and most of our meals were vegetarian or vegan. Among many other reasons for making this change, we really want to shake our cooking up. While we have gone back to eating meat this year, the time we spent without it taught us a lot about what sates our appetites.

I don’t find meat to be an essential part of a meal, in general. But if you are used to cooking with it regularly, it can be a challenge creating balanced meals without it. That’s probably why so many “meat” substitutes exist. Don’t get me wrong, protein is an important nutritional element, and many touted meat substitutes such as tofu (soy), seitan (made of wheat gluten) or tempeh (another soy product) provide that nutrient in abundance. But I do find that some people (mostly non-vegetarians) get much more worked up over getting enough than the average person really needs to worry about. Grains, legumes, and many vegetables can provide just as much protein when included regularly in a diet.

Meat substitutes can be great, and I plan on talking more about them in future weeks. If you’ve read much of this blog, you have probably gathered that I prefer food to be processed as little as possible when I begin cooking with it. So I knew that no matter what we were going to be eating we would be making much of it ourselves. And that points out another problem with relying on most meat substitutes for the bulk of a vegetarian diet – they are often heavily processed and expensive.

In my new diet, I wanted to focus on fresh food, that I knew as much about as possible, and that would keep me interested and coming back for more. I also had to combat with no longer having some of my favorite foods, which was less about nutrition or cost cutting and more about giving my taste buds what they wanted. After going without bacon for some time, I did begin to crave it quite a bit. That’s when I remembered this recipe that I had come across when following a recipe for seitan bourguignon (also amazing, but we’ll get to that later).

Fresh (undried) shiitake mushrooms are used here, roasted with a bit of oil and salt, until they are crispy. It’s not just the crisping that makes them wonderful – though the texture is quite addictive. The musky, sulfuric flavor of shiitake mushrooms turns into magic when they are cooked. They take on a remarkable similarity to the meaty, salty, umami of bacon. It’s not an exact match, for sure, but it’s so close, I’d wager that someone might be fooled in a blind taste test.

I couldn’t believe how good they turned out, I made them over and over again. This is a recipe any person who avoids bacon, or meat, should have in their repertoire. The only downside is that a pound of mushrooms, once the stems are removed, and the caps are cooked, turn into maybe a cup of crunchies. At the lowest price I’ve found for fresh shiitake, that’s much steeper than the price of even good bacon.

Recipe: Roasted Shiitake Bacon

Recipe originally found on WholeLiving.com

• 1/2 to 1lb fresh shiitake mushroom caps, sliced
• 1 tbs olive oil
• light sprinkle of course salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degress. 
2. Spread mushroom slices on an oiled pan. A glass or pyrex pan cooks more slowly, a metal pan cooks more quickly. I found I liked the way they came out better on the glass pan, but they took a lot more time to crisp. 
3. Allow to roast uncovered, tossing every 10 minutes, until dry, crisp, and not burnt. The first few times you check on them, they may not seem like they will ever become crispy, but have patience. The process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the amount of mushrooms, and the kind of pan. 
4. Once removed from the oven, allow to cool. 

Enjoy anywhere you might include bacon. And even more places. Since these were more like crumbles than slices, we put them on salads, wraps, on pizza, in macaroni and cheese, and crunched as a snack. The only place they didn’t really work was as a soup topping, as they became soggy pretty quickly.

Hey! When you’re chopping up the mushrooms, don’t throw away the stems! They are full of flavor, even if the texture is unpleasant. Clean them off and use them to make a mushroom or vegetable stock. I just save them in a large zip-top bag in the freezer until I have enough to make a large pot.

Read Full Post »

Sides: Spinach Frittata (Parade of Pies, Part 10)

When I was a child, every party the family threw had “spinach cupcakes” for the kids. We all loved them, probably because we thought they were cupcakes and not healthy grown up food. As an adult I make them because they are a huge crowd-pleaser and are pretty quick to throw together. I’m too lazy to wash cupcake pans, so I make these “brownie” style and just cut squares. They make decent finger food as well.

Read Full Post »

Sides: Curried Yams Tart (Parade of Pies, Part 9)

A few Thanksgivings ago, Jen and her mom went to the store to get a can of pumpkin for the pumpkin pie. They got home and realized that they had grabbed a can of sweet potatoes instead. Back to the store once more for an exchange, and back home again. The pie was made. And then eaten. And then the second can of sweet potatoes that was accidentally brought home was thrown away before anyone could see.

That’s the problem with so many sweet potato pies – they look like pumpkin pies, but aren’t them. When you are looking forward to pumpkin pie and you get sweet potato, it’s really disappointing. And sweet potato pie shouldn’t be disappointing, or indistinguishable. It should be delicious and unique.

I thought it would make more sense to have sweet potatoes as a side instead of competing with pumpkin pie as a dessert. Cubed instead of pureed. Savory and curried instead of sugared. A pie unlike any pumpkin pie I’ve ever seen.

Read Full Post »

Sides: Braised Onion Tart Tatin (Parade of Pies, Part 8)

We’re finally done with the dessert pies! As good as those all were, savory pies are one of my latest obsessions. Making a savory pie can be just as easy as making a sweet pie, but for some reason we don’t always think of them. We should, however, because savory pies are a great way to feed and impress a lot of people at once. Think about it: you pick a filling, execute, and then all of the sudden you have a gorgeous meal that can feed eight people, give or take. This pie is a perfect example of one of those impressive, but actually pretty easy pies. And for all its looks, it was a pretty inexpensive pie to make as well, since the filling was mostly made up of onions.

Serve this as a side to any meal. This is great for potlucks, since it is not likely to be duplicated by other guests. Those who prefer not to eat meat, dairy, or eggs will be relieved to have a complex dish on the table that is not just another pasta salad. 

Read Full Post »

White Bean salad, spread, or dip

Sometimes you have to admit that, no matter how hard you try to prove otherwise, you are wrong. Right on the heels of my last post about how great dried beans are, I have to take it back – at least partially. Dried beans can be great. Just not if you’re as absent-minded as me. And not if you need them right now.

I was going to write this whole post about how, now that you’ve got your pantry stocked with dried beans, you should try to enjoy them in something summery instead of the usual types of heavy bean dishes one thinks of. Well, there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of summer bean recipes that use dried beans. They are really winter ingredients, for when you don’t have as much fresh anything around. They take a long time to cook and, if you’re me, they burn if you aren’t paying close enough attention.

But however you get your white beans into a soft enough state for this dish, do it. It is delightful. It’s a great lunch or side, or even dinner for one or two. I make it when I want something quiet. The flavors are nothing to write home about, but this dish can be perfectly satisfying to snack on while doing something else. I also make this when I find it hard to rustle up an appetite for a full meal, or anything too rich. And hey, if you do repeatedly burn them (like me), you get a nice smoky flavor on the non-burnt beans.

This dish is simple, though it requires some advance planning to be able to use dried beans. The beans will need to soak, be cooked, and then the mixture should marinate so that the flavors permeate the beans.  In a pinch, a can of small white beans will also do – just rinse and add the rest of the ingredients (see step 4 and on, below). The dried beans have a much better texture and flavor, but make the dish much more complicated, so it is a trade-off.

Read Full Post »

Tangy Bulgur Salad and New Foods

We were recently invited to a potluck lunch with an ingenious theme: “New Foods.” The host wanted guests to bring foods that would most likely be new to him, and hopefully the other guests. I gave the challenge a lot of thought. I eat a lot of weird things, so I had plenty of options. But I wanted the food to be new to me as well, at least in preparation if not in flavor. So my thoughts immediately turned to Syrian food, which contains many familiar elements of other Middle Eastern cooking, but often goes a little more savory and tangy than sweet.

While most people are familiar with some Middle Eastern flavors, I often find that Syrian food, especially the cuisine originating in Aleppo, is really unknown outside of that ethnicity. That probably has to do with the fact that most Jewish Syrians live in the New York area, and there are very few Syrian restaurants. In my family, all the best cooks cook for family functions and their homes are like exclusive restaurants, though none of them cook professionally. I think this has to do with the way that cooking for people you love might be different than cooking for customers. What it amounts to though, is that unless you have a Syrian friend, you probably won’t get to taste a lot of the more unique Syrian dishes.

Read Full Post »

Whole Wheat Pocket Pita

I’ve clearly been on a bit of baking kick lately. I think it’s been because by the end of the week I’m out of fresh goods but I always have basic baking ingredients in my pantry.

A lot of people bake bread to be frugal. And I’d like to say that I made these pita because they were cheaper than store bought ones, but I’m not entirely sure that’s the case. They are better than store bought ones though. And really not that hard. If you like excuses to whip out the ol’ rolling pin, and want a bread that’s really hard to mess up and not too much trouble, give these a try. I have fun every time I make them. You’ll also end up with enough that you can probably freeze half for when you aren’t feeling as motivated to bake.

Read Full Post »

Mashed Potatoes and Hearty Greens

Potatoes and hearty greens are a huge staple of our diet when it starts to get cold outside. The days get shorter, and we get lazier. When you want something that will stick to your ribs, keep you warm, but also deliver a daily dose of greens, this is a stupidly-fast and easy dish to make.

This dish is based on the Irish classic colcannon, made a bit lighter with more greens, and vegetarian. Done this way, the dish is a more about the succulent flavorful greens than the potatoes.

Potatoes are always on hand in our pantry. When greens are plentiful, we stock up and always have some raw in our fridge or chopped and pre-cooked in our freezer. If you don’t have access to fresh, frozen greens are just as nutritious and can simply be defrosted and drained to add to the potatoes in this recipe.

Read Full Post »

Cool as a Cucumber Sandwich

This summer, strapped for time and staving off heat stroke, I can’t stop craving cucumber sandwiches. The simple sandwich highlights the natural coolness of a cucumber and don’t require me to turn on an oven (if you didn’t know, New York has been in the middle of a record breaking heat wave).

Cucumber sandwiches take minutes to make, and seconds to eat, and will leave you feeling light and satisfied.They can be posh with crusts off, perfectly thin bread, cut into tiny triangles and served on china; or they can be rustic with thick, uneven bread, crusts left on, and eaten right off the cutting board they were assembled on.

Read Full Post »

Fluffy Corn Fritters, or are they Hushpuppies?

As far as I can tell, a corn fritter happens when you pan-fry corn kernels in a white flour batter. A hushpuppy, on the other hand, is the product of deep frying dollops of corn meal or cornbread batter. I’m not really sure what happens when you add corn kernels to a corn meal/ white flour batter and deep fry them, other than the fact that whatever they are doesn’t stick around long enough to be named.

Read Full Post »