I was making whole wheat pancake batter this morning, and the batter looked a little thin. I was in a rush and wasn’t measuring precisely. So I added 1/4 cup of uncooked Cream of Bulgar, and they came out nice and light — even though I had also forgotten to add an egg.
How American is this? We had frozen home-made “TV dinners” tonight, which included bulgar pilaf. There was a bottle of ketchup sitting on the counter, and I thought, “Why not?” So I dashed a good portion of ketchup onto the pilaf, mixed it in, and it was very good.
Yesterday I mixed some left-over bulgar pilaf with a can of carrots (drained). Heated it up, and voila, quick and easy side dish for the meatloaf. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. Carrots in general — shredded, cooked, canned, however — are a good match with bulgar.
Cook some sausage and scramble some eggs (however much you need for those you’re feeding).
After the eggs are scrambled, add cooked bulgar pilaf (about 1/4 cup per person).
Combine all ingredients in skillet. Voila, quick and nutritious “stick to your ribs” breakfast.
This is a good use for left-over bulgar.
About 3 cups of left-over cooked bulgar pilaf
1 can of of chopped cooked greens (or an equivalent amount of freshly cooked greens)
grated cheese (to taste)
Place left over cooked bulgar pilaf in skillet and warm.
Add cooked greens and cheese.
Heat until hot and the cheese is melted
Here’s tonight’s version of the Cream of Bulgar Casserole.
1 cup uncooked Cream of Bulgar
1 cup vegetable broth
1 cup water
1/2 chopped onion
1 small can mushrooms, drained
1 can cooked collard greens, “seasoned Southern style”, well drained
Garlic powder, black pepper
1 teaspoon habanero sauce
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup yogurt cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 cup shredded cheese
Dash of salt
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Open the can of collard greens and put it in a colander to drain. Catch the liquid and add to compost or save for use in a later recipe.
Saute the onions and mushrooms in butter, add water and broth, sprinkle the cream of bulgar over the liquid, stir, add habanero sauce, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, cook about 5 minutes. Add the greens and the shredded cheese. If you don’t have your own habanero sauce, add some cayenne pepper or Louisiana style hot sauce. The point of that is — this is a bland dish, so give it some pep!
Take about 1/4 cup of the mixture, put in a cup, add 1/8 cup water, and combine this with the beaten egg, then add this to the mixture and stir thoroughly.
Bake until nicely done. It took me about 1 hour, but I was cooking it in an electric roaster oven on the porch. (We cook outside during the summer.) It would probably have taken a little less time in the inside oven.
This dish is a meal by itself, but we had it with a pork roast.
This morning I was making whole wheat pancakes for breakfast, and decided, what the heck, I have all this bulgar laying around, let’s throw some in the pancake batter.
Good choice, Bob. I used the bulgar that I had cooked overnight in the crockpot (see previous post today). My recipe for whole wheat pancakes with bulgar is as follows:
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup prepared bulgar
Mix the dry ingredients, add the oil, mix thoroughly. Add the prepared bulgar, buttermilk, beaten egg, and water. Let the batter stand for about 10 minutes while you fry some sausage or bacon for a side dish. Make small dollar size pancakes. This recipe makes about 18 dollar sizers, which is our favorite size of pancake. Well, it actually made about 21 but I et three while cooking them — one must be certain of the quality before serving. Two of us can’t eat 18 pancakes for breakfast, but that’s OK, because these keep just fine, and they are great for occasional snacks, especially with peanut butter.
This week I am making frozen dinners for eating later — I do this because sometimes I am too busy to cook, so I like to take a nice home-made frozen dinner out of the freezer and warm it up in the oven. This is much better than fast food or eating out at a restaurant, and it is much cheaper.
So yesterday I made a “whole lotta bulgar”.
3 large onions, chopped
8 cups bulgar (regular grind)
16 cups broth (I used some frozen vegetable broth, plus the drippings from the roasts I was cooking for the meat portion of the frozen dinners, and topped it off with water)
garlic powder
1 tablespoon dill seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
3 tablespoons habanero sauce
I put the onions in my electric skillet, with some olive oil, and sprinled the dill, cumin, and coriander seeds, also the garlic powder (several shakes), and some salt. While they were sauteing, I put the broth in a pot, added the habanero sauce.
When the onions were clear, I added them to the broth, and poured the uncooked bulgar into the pan, and heated it for about 5 minutes. Then I put all but 2 cups of it in a large roasting pan, and added 12 cups of the broth. The other 2 cups I put in a crock pot with 4 cups broth. I would have done it “all in one pot”, but my roaster wasn’t big enough for 8 cups of bulgar and 16 cups of broth. There were also about 4 cups of veggies (carrots, cabbage, and celery) from the broth that went in with the bulgar.
The main roasting pot went into the electric roaster on the front porch (I always cook outside during the summer, as an energy conservation matter — less heat and humidity inside = more comfort). The crock pot also went onto the porch, on low.
I set the roaster at 350 degrees, and about 45 minutes later, voila, 12 cups of cooked bulgar. The crock pot bulgar was ready this morning. It has a more moist texture than the roaster (equivalent of oven-cooked) method, I will have more to say about that in a moment.
So that’s how to make a whole lotta bulgar for whatever event you may have coming up (church supper, family reunion, or your own version of “once a month” cooking.
OK, so now we have some unflavored seitan. What can be done with it?
Lots, but for now, I have been experimenting with pan frying it. First I slice it about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick. Then I coat it with a mixture of herbs and spices with a bit of salt. I don’t have a standard mixture yet, as this is still in the test kitchen stage. I have rubbed the spices/herbs into the cutlets, and I have sprinkled them instead of rubbing. The next step is to pan fry them in a little olive oil until there is a nice crisp “skin”.
The last step is to eat them, and they are tasty.
Besides making my own mixes, I have used commercial steak seasoning and poultry seasoning, although with the steak seasoning you have to read ingredients to make sure there is no MSG added.
“Seitan” is a Japanese word for what we might call “gluten meat”. Prairie Rose seitan is made from 100% whole wheat, from the certified organic farm of John and Kris Gosney here in Oklahoma. First I mix the flour with water to the consistency of bread dough. After letting it soak for a while in water, I “wash” it under running water so that the bran and the starch wash out, leaving behind only the wheat gluten.
I form it into loaves, and steam it for about 45 minutes. Voila, unflavored seitan!
When I first read the directions for making seitan, I thought, “this sounds crazy, the dough will just dissolve.’ Well, as it turns out, not quite. It takes less than 10 minutes to wash one batch of seitan (about the equivalent of a batch of dough that makes 2 loaves). I put the dough in a colander, and then put a wire screen underneath that to catch the bran. As I wash the seitan, I break it into every smaller lumps, and the bran and starch wash away. After a few minutes, it seems like it will all fall apart, but then it comes back together and the seitan loaf takes shape.