The Bulgar Bugle

This is a great tasting and nutritious dessert that is based on a traditional baked rice and custard pudding.  Use “Salad Bulgar” — which is bulgar that has been cooked in fruit juice (like orange or apple juice instead of a meat or vegetable stock).

• 4 eggs, beaten
• 3 c. milk
• 4 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 c. cooked bulgar
• 1/2 c. raisins (dried cranberries are nice too)

Combine all ingredients.  Pour into a 2 1/2 quart baking dish. Set this baking dish in a larger pan of water in the oven. Bake at 300 degrees for about 1 hour. After first 30 minutes, insert spoon at edge of pudding and stir from bottom. Bake until knife inserted near center of pudding comes out clean. Don’t overbake, the over-baked custard yields a bit of water when spooned into a serving dish.  Serve hot, warm or cold. Serves about 6 to 8.

In my post on Chicken Fried Turkey, I mentioned frozen turnip greens.   

I bought a lot of turnip and mustard greens on the November coop order, and cooked them all in a big pot, portioning them into six meal-sized packages in the freezer.  I just pulled one out, popped the frozen mass of greens into a pot, set it on low, and went about the business of the rest of dinner, and when it was ready, so were the greens.

How did I cook them?  First I washed and chopped them, and ripped out some of the stalks that seemed particularly woody.  I then put them in a large pot, with a bit of oil, 8 chopped cloves of garlic, one chopped onion, and some shaved ham from Colpitts Pine Ridge Ranch in eastern Oklahoma.  I sauteed them until they were wilted, then I added some chicken stock, 1/8 cup brown sugar, and some habanero sauce, brought the pot to a boil, turned it down to a simmer, and let it simmer a couple of hours.  That’s the way I like my greens, served with a dash of vinegar.

To freeze them, I simply scooped meal-size portions into freezer containers, and poured some of the pot likker over that, sealed them and popped them in the freezer.

It is Day the Third of the Turkey.  Yesterday we simply had warmed over Thanksgiving Dinner.  Twice.    Plus pumpkin pie for breakfast.

On the way home from the Saturday Mass, I was thinking, “OK, what to do with turkey.”  And out came — “Chicken fried turkey”.  So when I got home, I put some oil in the deep fryer, poured a little milk in a bowl, and 2 cups of flour in a second bowl.  To the two cups of flour I added salt and pepper, maybe 1 teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of black pepper.  I cut some strips and chunks from the turkey, dipped them in the milk, then in the flour, and then repeated that process for a double-dip.  Into the deep fryer for about 3 minutes until they were golden brown.  We ate them with the last of the green bean casserole and bulgar/broccoli stuffing, and cooked turnip greens from the freezer.

Ingredients:

• Whole wheat flour — freshly ground is best
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup yogurt
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup oil

Mix the liquid ingredients, add the yeast.  Combine thoroughly.  Add one cup flour, mix thoroughly. I use a mixer for the first few cups.  add the salt.  Continue adding flour and using the mixer until you can’t use the mixer anymore.  Continue to add flour until the dough is where you want it.  I like the dough of whole wheat breads to be a little sticky.  Knead for 5-10 minutes.  Because I like a sticky/tacky dough, I coat it with a little oil before I start kneading.  Usually it gets more sticky as I go along, so I sprinkle it with a little flour, but the end product remains just a bit sticky.  I know this is hard to convey in words, but just experiment.

Let rise for 2 hours, pat the dough so it deflates a bit, then let it rise for another hour.  Then roll out into rolls (about the size of a golf ball) and place separated by about 1/2 inch on a baking pan.  Bake at 425 degrees F for 12 minutes or so until nicely done.

• 1 can beer 
• 2 eggs 
• flour (3 cups of flour makes a lot of onion rings)
• Habanero Salsa 
• baking powder (1.5 tsp per cup of flour) 
• Spices and Herbs to taste (garlic powder, cayenne, whatever you like, experiment!)
• oil for frying

Cut the onions into rings. Mix the dry ingredients. Beat the eggs with the beer and the habanero salsa but don’t mix with the dry ingredients. Dip the rings into the beer/egg mixture, then into the dry mixture so they are thoroughly covered with flour. Dip again in beer/egg and again in dry mixture. If you don’t have habanero salsa, use cayenne pepper in the dry ingredients.  Fry in hot oil until done.  If you are using some of these for green bean casserole, fry the onion rings for that dish a little more crispy than the others for just snackin’.

This year’s Green Bean Casserole was a local food delight:

• Frozen green beans from a local farmer.
• Shitaake mushrooms, also local
• 2 cups milk (or 1 cup milk and 1 cup stock)
• Fried onion rings (home-made of course)
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 tablespoons flour

Make the onion rings.  See “Sean’s Should Be Famous Onion Ring Recipe” at this site. Cook the green beans in water (about 10 minutes).  Put the oil and flour in a skillet and make a roux. Slice the mushrooms and add them and cook until the flour starts to darken a bit.  Add the liquid and thicken.  Mix the onion rings with the green beans, and pour the mushroom sauce over the top.  Add some more onion rings to the top.  Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Yummm.  Very good.

This doesn’t have any bulgar in it, but it is a great recipe.  If you have never made a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin, you are missing out on a great taste treat.

First, roast the pumpkin.  I cut the pumpkin in half, cleaned out the seeds and “strings” (save the seeds and roast them for a snack).  then I cut it in slices, and placed them on their sides in a baking dish.  I added 2 cups water to the baking dish.  Then I baked them at 350 degrees for about an hour and a half.  Bake them until the pumpkin is soft. 

Peel or cut the rind away from the pumpkin.  Then puree it using a blender, food processor, or mixer. I used a mixer.  You need about 3 cups of this cooked, mashed pumpkin to make 2  nine-inch pies.

Here’s my recipe, as adapted from Pumpkins and More .

• 3 cups cooked mashed pumpkin
• 1 cup sugar (I used brown sugar, you can also use honey)
• 4 eggs
• 1-1/4 cups yogurt
• pumpkin pie seasonings — 1 teaspoon each of ground cloves and allspice, 1-1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients and mix well.  Pour into 2 nine-inch pie shells.  Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook for another 45 minutes.  It’s done when a blunt knife inserted in the center comes out mostly clean.

PS.  Make your own pie crust.  Pumpkins and More has great illustrated instructions.  The only way to learn to make great pie crust is to make a lot of pies.  Many years ago I complained to my grandmother Dovie Waldrop that I couldn’t make a good pie crust.  She replied, “Bobby Max, the reason you can’t make a good pie crust is that you haven’t made enough pies.  When you have made 100 pies,  I bet you make a great pie crust.”  And she was right!

First the terminology.  Stuffing is what you get when you stuff stuffing ingredients inside the bird.  That’s never been a tradition in my family, and some recommend strongly against it.  Dressing is the same type of dish as stuffing, only cooked separately from the bird as a side-dish.  That’s what this recipe is about.

Ingredients

• 9-10 slices of dry whole wheat bread, cubed.
• 2 cups of leftover bulgar (I used 2 cups of left-over cream of broccoli/bulgar soup that I made.
• 2 eggs, beaten
• Finely chopped fresh sage and some thyme, to your personal taste.
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 stalks of celery, sliced
• 2 cups stock

Saute the onions and celery, and for the last minute or so, add the fresh herbs (or dried herbs if you don’t have fresh growing in your yard).  In a bowl, combine the cooked veggies with the bread cubes, left-over bulgar, and eggs.  Add 2 cups stock.  I used juices from the turkey and a bit of broth from simmering the turkey’s neck, giblets, heart, and liver.  Bake for one-half hour at 350 degrees.

Tricia Dameron, blogstress at oklavore.com , has a new recipe for a Cream of Bulgar lunch.  It looks like it was invented the way most great recipes are developed — “let’s see, what’s around that I could make into a lunch?”.  She cooked cream of bulgar in equal parts milk and beef broth, and then added chunks of white cheddar cheese.   That was then topped with a generous helping of cooked greens.  Read the original here.

I made a great chili today –

• 1 lb grassfed ground beef
• 1 lb local ground pork
• 4 cups beans (soaked overnight in water)
• 4 small cans tomato sauce (8 ounce cans)
• 1 cup uncooked bulgar
• Chopped garlic, onions
• Cumin, chili powder, cayenne, plus 1 tablespoon of Bob’s Hotter Than Hades Habanero Sauce

I browned the pork and ground beef with the garlic and onions, added the spices and poured it into a large crockpot.  Then I added the bulgar, beans, tomato sauce, and filled it the rest of the way with water.  I turned it on high for the first hour, then down to low. . . 8 hours later, hotter than hades chili with bulgar.

Bulgar is turning out to be a great meat extender.  I could probably have made this with one pound (or less) of meat and doubled the uncooked bulgar.

Preview of Tomorrow’s Attraction — cream of bulgar with Bob’s Hotter than Hades Habanero Sauce.  I can’t believe I haven’t tried this yet!  Plus hmmm. . . a dash of honey and of course yogurt. That’s a breakfast that will break a sweat and stick to your ribs.