Broccoli, Cheddar, and Wild Rice Casserole
Screwing things up is perhaps the essence of my brand as a chef. When Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman makes this recipe for "Broccoli, Cheddar, and Wild Rice Casserole," it has this gorgeous cheesy topping, a little bit browned in spots. When I made it, I somehow overlooked the "1/3 of" when the recipe stated "stir in 1/3 of grated cheese." Instead I put all of it into the sauce rather than 2/3 of it on top, and thus it had no gorgeous broiled topping.
Cheese on top, cheese in the sauce....there is a difference, of course, but the key word is "cheese." You can't really go wrong where cheese is involved. It still tasted good.
The only wild rice blend at Stop-and-Shop had very little wild rice in it, so that was a little disappointing to me as a Minnesotan. And while we're acknowledging my Minnesota roots, I should say that if you make this dish in my home state, you would call it hotdish. Odds are good that you would serve it at a potluck in the basement of a Lutheran church on an absurdly cold day, and the impressed Lutherans would ask you for the hotdish recipe, and you would happily provide it to them, because of "Minnesota nice."
Also on the subject of Minnesota, today I got to have lunch with my we-go-wayyy-back friend Rob, who hails MN like me. We had lunch at a vegetarian/vegan place called Red Bamboo in NYC, with all kinds of meat-substitute dishes. It was good, although not "you have to try this" good.
Back to the casserole/hotdish: no matter in what state (geographical, physical, or mental) you serve it, you are doing your part to preserve our planet's health when you present delicious alternatives to meat. Earth's population continues to grow, as does meat consumption per capita, leading Science magazine to conclude, "It is difficult to envisage how the world could supply a population of 10 billion or more people with the quantity of meat currently consumed in most high-income countries without substantial negative effects on environmental sustainability" (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6399/eaam5324). Thanks for having an open mind as to how you can help change the climate trajectory.
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The only wild rice blend at Stop-and-Shop had very little wild rice in it, so that was a little disappointing to me as a Minnesotan. And while we're acknowledging my Minnesota roots, I should say that if you make this dish in my home state, you would call it hotdish. Odds are good that you would serve it at a potluck in the basement of a Lutheran church on an absurdly cold day, and the impressed Lutherans would ask you for the hotdish recipe, and you would happily provide it to them, because of "Minnesota nice."
Also on the subject of Minnesota, today I got to have lunch with my we-go-wayyy-back friend Rob, who hails MN like me. We had lunch at a vegetarian/vegan place called Red Bamboo in NYC, with all kinds of meat-substitute dishes. It was good, although not "you have to try this" good.
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| Bamboo curry "chicken," which tasted good, but could have used more sauce. |
Back to the casserole/hotdish: no matter in what state (geographical, physical, or mental) you serve it, you are doing your part to preserve our planet's health when you present delicious alternatives to meat. Earth's population continues to grow, as does meat consumption per capita, leading Science magazine to conclude, "It is difficult to envisage how the world could supply a population of 10 billion or more people with the quantity of meat currently consumed in most high-income countries without substantial negative effects on environmental sustainability" (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6399/eaam5324). Thanks for having an open mind as to how you can help change the climate trajectory.
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