Scheherazade Casserole

I apologize for my lack of updates recently ... school is swallowing me whole with the homework and the typing and the headaches and the mechanical pencils.  Thankfully, tomorrow is the last day of summer quarter! I will be back to my regular bloggity bloggin' schedule with lots of delicious Moosewood dishes to share!  I am very excited!

Today, as a distraction from a giant social studies unit I am putting together, I made Scheherazade Casserole. I have no idea how to pronounce this casserole, but I do know how to eat it: in a bowl, with a spoon!  I made a few adjustments because I didn't have any bulgur AND I got the wrong kind of soybeans, but this recipe still turned out delicious.  Like, lick the serving spoon delicious.

Instead of using the aforementioned bulgur, I substituted quinoa. I think this worked well, considering that both are grains and fairly chewy.

Quinoa is so rad. I need to eat it more often. I also need to convert Charlie into a quinoa eater. But I digress ....

I don't have any photos of the process, but here's what happened: I cooked onion and red bell pepper on the stove with salt, cumin, basil, cayenne, and black pepper. This was a highly seasoned dish and you can make it very spicy with the cayenne! I cooked soybeans (I used edamame ... it was great!) in a separate pot. In a large bowl I combined the cooked quinoa, edamame, seasoned onion/bell pepper mixture, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and feta cheese. Everything smelled so spicy and tomatoey!  Ohhh baby!  I sprinkled the tops with a little more feta and baked the casseroles in the oven.  They came out golden and bubbly and scented my apartment wildly.

I served the casserole hot with some super delicious gala apple slices. The tomato paste added a great deal of flavor to the dish and the cayenne made it perfectly spicy. A high protein, high flavor dish I look forward to making again!

Mushroom Moussaka

I am taking full advantage of these last few days of freedom before I start summer quarter. I had some free time yesterday and decided, on a bit a of whim, to make Mushroom Moussaka. This recipe required quite a bit of multitasking, but luckily, it's my middle name!

There are three layers in this moussaka: roasted eggplant, mushroom sauce, and béchamel sauce. I began by slicing and sweating out the eggplant. Sweating it meant sprinkling it with salt and letting it rest in a colander for 30 minutes.

Then the eggplant was dried off and roasted in the oven.

While the eggplant roasted, I prepared the mushroom sauce.  I coarsely chopped mushrooms and cooked them on the stove with onion, canned diced tomatoes, and tomato paste. The sauce was seasoned with oregano, basil, and an unlikely sprinkle of ... cinnamon!

Then I made the béchamel sauce. This was very similar to other cheese sauces I have made before: butter, flour, milk, and in this case, parmesan cheese. I also added a swift dash of nutmeg to the sauce.

So now I had all of the components to put together the moussaka!  Even though I halved the recipe, it was clear that this would only fit into a big pan. I started with a double layer of eggplant on the bottom:

Then all of the mushroom sauce:

Followed by the rest of the roasted eggplant (I miscalculated this part a little bit!) :

Then all of the béchamel sauce:

Then the whole thing got covered it a dusting of breadcrumbs and parmesan. While it bakes, you can eat a kiwi play Spider Solitaire. Just sayin'. It'll come out bubbly and browned and oh so divine!

I ate a portion of the moussaka hot. It later reheated beautifully and tasted like a complex combination of veggies with just the right amount of cinnamon!

Noodle Kugel

I knew, even before I started gathering ingredients for Noodle Kugel, that I probably wasn't going to like it. It's listed in the dinner section of the New Moosewood Cookbook, but the ingredients are sweet, more like dessert. Not wanting to skip any recipes in an attempt to cook everything in this book, I decided to try it anyways. It was sweet and strange.

I started by cooking egg noodles on the stove. In a blender, I combined an egg, cream cheese, sour cream, a little yogurt, vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar. The noodles and the sauce got mixed together with a few slices of peach and a sprinkling of bread crumbs on top. I don't think I will make this again. It was an odd combination of ingredients and reminded me of something I'd have for breakfast.

Arabian Squash Casserole

I amended Arabian Squash Casserole in its assembly. Instead of mixing the roasted butternut squash, onion and bell pepper saute, and feta-yogurt delight, I layered them in the pan. I was pleased with how it turn out. The topping looks a little like popcorn! I love the way the cheese and yogurt browned. The bell peppers and cayenne made this dinner a little bit spicy.

Broccoli Mushroom Noodle Casserole

Broccoli Mushroom Noodle Casserole is exactly that. There's some breadcrumbs, and cheese, and a little sauteed onion in there too. It's all quite delicious and makes you feel like you're eating healthy macaroni and cheese. I love a good veggie saute!

Spinach-Rice Casserole

Spinach-Rice Casserole contains a pound of spinach (I halved the recipe) which you steam down to nearly nothing. It's amazing to watch this giant leafy green mound melt into a little sopping wet heap. The spinach is then mixed with brown rice, onion, garlic, sunflower seeds, a milky egg mixture, spices, and some grated cheddar cheese. Really filling and absolutely delicious. I was so pleased with how this recipe turned out!