Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Vegetarian Hot-Hot Dish

5 medium potatoes, partially peeled and cut into large chunks*
3 medium carrots, fully peeled and sliced into coins
1/2 C. white beans
1/2 C. cooked barley
1/4 C. bread crumbs
oil for cooking
salt and pepper to taste
1 TB. molasses
1 TB. lemon juice
1 TB. Worchestershire sauce
1/4 C. prepared Korean BBQ sauce
1/3 C. ketchup
1/4 C. milk (optional)
1/4 C. butter (optional)

Make the vegetarian ground beef crumble out of 1/2 C. white beans (chopped in the food processor or lightly mashed), 1/2 C. cooked barley, 1/4 C. bread crumbs, and 1 TB. of the Korean BBQ sauce.  Heat a generous amount of cooking oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add in the crumble mixture and let it sit and sizzle for about 5 minutes undisturbed.  Break it up and turn it with a spatula so that you have crumbley pieces (uncooked it's sort of a paste), about 5-10 more minutes.  In the meantime, put your potatoes and carrots in two pots over high heat and bring to a boil, then reduce to medium-high and boil until done.  Remove the crumbles from the heat when they're done.  Drain the potatoes and carrots; set the carrots aside.  Using the pot you cooked the potatoes in, melt the butter and scald the milk.  Add the potatoes back into the pot and mash them well, adding salt and pepper to taste-- I used about 1 tsp. of each.  In a small bowl, mix together the lemon juice, molasses, Korean BBQ sauce, ketchup, and Worchestershire sauce.  Preheat the oven on the "broil" setting.  In a glass baking dish, put the cooked crumbles in an even layer on the bottom.  Spoon the sauce over top.  Layer on the cooked carrots, then top with your mashed potatoes, smoothing them to make sure they are an even thickness over the whole dish.  Put the baking dish in the oven and broil until the mashed potatoes begin to brown, about 5-10 minutes.  This is pretty delicious served over top of fresh salad greens, as shown, but would also be just as good served alongside a couple of cooked vegetables.
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This dish is hot, hot, hot!  Okay, it's not that hot really.
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*Being a woman, I'm well-versed in the benefits of a diet high in B-vitamins such as the ones found in the skins of potatoes.  To make a compromise between flavor and nutritional quality, I peel my patotoes in stripes (instead of peeling all of the skin off) and use them that way.

The name of this recipe is tongue-in-cheek in more than one way.  Way number 1: "hot dish" is a midwestern staple that has potatoes and ground beef, much like this dish, which has a vegetarian "ground beef" crumble and mashed potatoes on top.  Way number 2: the prepared Korean BBQ sauce makes it kinda spicy (ha ha ha "hot dish", "hot-hot dish").  Way number 3: during a time when I had a burning need to own a pet rabbit, the perfect pet (I never did get one), I discovered that there is a breed of rabbits called the Hothot.  Also there are dwarf Hothots.  Since this is vegetarian, it's rabbit food!  Yes, congratulate me.  Creative Writing degree successfully used once again.

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