Theme Recipe: Vegetable Casserole

This is from last week.  I had internet gremlins last week and just gave up trying to blog after a while.  

About the recipe choice:  I thought since we were celebrated Endangered Species Day with a Friday full of cryptids and potential monsters of sorts...it just wouldn't be sporting but to post anything other than a vegetarian dish.  So I figured I would go all out and post an entree.  We do Meatless Monday's, so though I have not had an opportunity to try this particular recipe yet, I'm sure I will have in the very near future. 

Being from the South, I grew up with all manner of vegetable casseroles, but they were always served with something like fried chicken or roasts.  It wasn't until I got older that I started finding recipes for full casseroles that would serve as a main course, and not just a side dish.  So, here's to all the endangered animals out there:  let them keep living.  I'm sure later on I'll do something awful that vegetarians won't approve of, such as French Frogs Legs or Braised Rabbit...

VEGETABLE CASSEROLE

This comes from a really good basic book that it edited, not just written, on the basic of vegetarian cooking.  It's really like a how to book and comes from Reader's Digest, simply entitled Vegetarian Cooking.  Contributing editor is Sarah Brown.

Topping:

2/3 cup rolled oats

2 tbsp. brown rice flour

1/2 cup finely chopped cashews

2 tbsp. sunflower oil

1 tsp. dried rosemary.

Filling:

2 lbs root vegetable of your choice (suggests:  carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, turnip)

Sauce:

2 tsp. sunflower oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 tbsp. cashews

2 tbsp. brown rice flour

2/3 cup skim milk (cold)

1 1/4 cups vegetable stock

1 tsp. dried rosemary

Salt to taste (or substitute gomasio)

Black Pepper

1.  For the topping:  add the first 3 ingredients and pour in the sunflower oil.  Sprinkle in the rosemary and mix well with your fingers.

2.  For the filling:  scrub the roots and cut into bite sized pieces.  Steam for 10 to 12 minutes, until just tender.  Reserve the steaming water for the stock.

3.  Preheat 375 degrees

4.  For the sauce:  heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the onion and cook until soft, around 2 minutes.  Add in the cashews and very light brown.

5.  Meanwhile mix the brown rice flour with the milk, and stir to make a slurry (no lumps).

6.  Pour this, along with the reserved vegetable steam water (1 1/4 cups) into the saucepan.  Add in the dried rosemary.  Bring to boil and stir constantly.  When thick, season with salt (or gomasio) and pepper.  Let cool and the puree (a submergable blender works great for this).

7.  Lightly grease a baking dish with oil, then add in the steamed vegetables.  Cover with sauce, the sprinkle on the topping.  Bake for 30 minutes and serve hot.

Variations:

Of course the vegetable can be changes out and do not need to be root vegetables.

The vegetables can be peeled (in this case they probably should be roots) and the peels can be used to make and even stronger stock by adding them to the steaming water while the vegetables are cooking.

The book is low fat, I don't generally go low fat.  It's really not a good idea to go low fat if a vegetarian diet is being followed anyway--use whole milk by all means.

Change the nuts out for some other nut.  Also regular rice flour or even wheat flour can be used.

Add in some garlic and change the rosemary out for other herbs.

Of course, if you want to make this for a Friday Fright Night...or just Halloween, do what these guys did above and make some eyeballs with mozzarella and sliced olives.