A few years ago I was inspired to make a savory bread pudding after a neighbor gave us a day-old baguette. Since last year’s quest for the perfect quiche base, I’ve wanted to revisit this comfort food favorite and make a few changes. We love the new result and I am happy to offer this new version for the So Delicious Spring Fling Dairy-Free Recipe Contest.

While the recipe calls for a full-size baguette, the equivalent amount of any stale bread will work great. The best versions combine a few dry heels of a different types of bread so you get a big variation in the taste and chewiness of the bread, which is awesome. The version pictured here used the ends of three different bakery loaves: Walnut Whole Wheat and Country Brown, both from Ken’s Artisan Bakery, plus a bit of White Sourdough, from Grand Central Bakery (bakeries noted for folks in or visiting Portland).

The Stuff

• 1 stale baguette, coarsely cut up
• 1 medium bunch of kale, washed, stemmed & shredded
• 2 small leeks, white parts only, sliced thin
• 1 large carrot, diced small
• 1 large stalk of celery, diced small
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2 12.3-ounce packages lite firm silken tofu, drained of water
• 1/2 cup So Delicious Unsweetened Almond Plus 5X almond milk
• Leaves from 8 stems of parsley, chopped fine
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons tahini
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black salt* (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 1 T champagne vinegar
• sweet paprika to sprinkle over the top

*Black Salt, or Kala Namak is usually found at a Desi market or a good pan-Asian market that features ingredients popular in Indian and other South Asian cuisines. It is mostly sodium chloride, but it also contains sulfur in addition to the other minerals. It is pink or light purple in color and imparts a more subtle flavor cooked. It can be skipped, just add 1/4 t of sea salt, but it worth the effort to seek it out. If you don’t have any suitable markets in your area, Kala Namak Salt can be purchased online.

The Making

Preheat oven to 375.

In a skillet heat the olive oil on medium-high heat and saute garlic quickly, less than two minutes, until it begins to sizzle. Add in celery, carrots, and leeks. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue to sauté until the veggies begin to soften. Add kale, cover and reduce heat to low. Continue to cook, turning occasionally, until kale is softened. After 10 minutes drizzle champagne vinegar into the pan and cover for 5 more minutes. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl add coarsely chopped up bread, fresh parsley, and sautéed vegetables.

Add the remaining ingredients into a blender. Process until mixture is completely smooth, occasionally scraping down the sides to be sure everything is incorporated. Pour this mixture over the bread and vegetables. Mix all ingredients together, making sure bread is coated with the tofu-custard.

Spray a 9×13 baking dish with Canola oil. Pour bread, custard and vegetable mixture into dish. Lightly press down so that the pan is evenly filled. Dust top with sweet paprika.

Put pan into the oven and immediately reduce heat to 350. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and cool five minutes before cutting and serving.

Makes 12 servings.

Nutritional Info

Serving Size: 1 slice
Calories: 171
Total Fat: 4 g
Saturated Fat: 1g
Cholesterol: 0g
Sodium: 241 mg (10%)
Carbohydrates: 25 g
Dietary Fiber: 3 g
Sugars: 3 g
Protein: 11 g

We kicked off the garden with a bang last weekend. I also started clearing off our front porch and replanted several pots with beautiful flowers. This seems an entirely fitting way to celebrate May Day!

Serenity & Whimsy Side-by-Side

Christie spent much of the 2 days deep-digging, amending, and turning nearly all of the big fourth bed. This has always been intended for root vegetables, but with our clay-dense soil it requires a fair bit of digging to get a deep bed. We added agricultural sand, 5-part soil mix (contains compost, sand, as well as soil) and peat moss to loosen up the bed for growing carrots, red & sweet onions, leeks, and beets…. for now, we’ll be adding even more beets, carrots and radishes to this bed. I’m even pondering daikon!

Baby Roots!

In another bed we decided to start some salad greens, savoy & “personal” red cabbage (they make miniature, single-serving heads), broccoli rapini, and a red variety of Brussel sprout. We plan to build a fifth bed this year to be our “salad bowl” where we’ll have all kinds of salad greens. We might yet still continue to do brassica type veggies in a separate bed, perhaps alternating with summer squash.

Greens!

Our friends Caylee and Carolyn came over to help with the planting while I took off to go with Devon to see the Johnny Clegg Band. I’d kind of tossed the starts from Portland Nursery out along the bed, roughly where I wanted them. I then ran off without explaining the exact locations nor that the plant tags should be left with them. So a few things might be a little close on one side, but it should work out pretty well. However, we can’t quite recall what one thing is, we’re thinking some kind of red/purple broccoli perhaps.

Mystery Brassica

And then there’s the tomatoes. Yes, tomatoes, damnit. Here and now I throw down the tomato gauntlet and declare that we’re going to have the first home-grown tomatoes in the city. Hell yes!

Cold Hardy Babies

These first four, eventually the entire bed will be tomatoes, are cold-hardy varieties with names like “Moscovite”. As you can see they’ve got red plastic “mulch” to heat the ground (the raised beds also help to heat things up). But wait, there’s more garden-fu happening! In the middle of these little babies there’s a gallon jug of water acting as a passive solar heater, and over the top of them are small pvc pipes holding up 6mm clear plastic. Yep, we’ve got ourselves a tunnel cloche! Now that’s the way to get tomatoes going on May Day!

Can I Get An Amen for the Tunnel Cloche!

There’s still a lot of digging to go. In addition to the “salad bowl” we also have to clear the last raised bed of monster weeds and over-wintered kale (we’ve been snacking on the rabe). This bed will contain peppers of all heat-levels and a few eggplants for me. We also want to convert a 140 gallon stock tank I’ve had for a few years into an herb garden. Getting such a good start right at the beginning of May feels great, eventually we’ll be going all year round for many veggies.

Christie and the Dirt Pile

Sundays tend to be a slower day for us and give us time to get ready for the busy work-week. One of my favorite dishes to make on lazy Sunday mornings is a hash of potatoes, whatever veggies are on hand, and some tempeh or tofu. The results vary greatly by season, but are always tasty. Feel free to change this up to match the veggies you’ve got on hand at the end of the week.

I use a kind of two-step method to get the potatoes nice and golden brown on the outside, while fluffy on the inside. While they get close to perfection, the other ingredients get a good saute before being added to the potatoes.

Because this calls for using the low broil setting of your oven, be sure to keep an eye on things. There’s a lot of variations in ovens and I’d hate for anyone to follow the times exactly and end up with charred hash!

Last but not least – please don’t be intimidated by the steps. It basically amounts to cooking as you go along, adding things to the roasting pan and stirring things around regularly so it all comes together perfectly!

Yummy Sunday Brunch!

The Stuff

• 5 small potatoes
• 1/2 medium onion
• 1 crown of broccoli
• 1 bunch of kale
• 1 8oz package of tempeh
• salt
• pepper
• nutritional yeast (fine flake preferred)
• sweet smoked paprika
• garlic pepper
• high-heat spray oil (canola)
• sliced avocado (optional)

The Making

Pre-heat oven to low broil. Scrub the potatoes and cut them into bite-sized piece. Place these into a covered, microwave-safe dish. Microwave potatoes until tender, tossing with fork half-way through; aprox. 6-10 minutes depending upon the strength of your microwave.

Drain off any water that may have accumulated in the bottom of your microwave dish before pouring the tender potatoes into a lightly oiled roasting pan. Be certain to spread the potatoes out evenly and then very lightly spray them with oil. Put roasting pan into oven. Check every 4-6 minutes. As the potatoes brown on the first side, remove pan from oven and stir the potatoes around before putting back under the broiler.

Pre-heat a skillet, preferably cast iron, to medium heat. While the potatoes are cooking cut up the onion in a medium dice. Lightly film the skillet with oil and adding the onions. Saute until translucent and beginning to brown, about 4-6 minutes.

As onions saute cut up tempeh into 1″ piece. Add this to the onions once they start to brown. Saute tempeh with onions, stirring occasionally as the tempeh gets a little brown on the sides.

Cut up the broccoli into bite sized pieces and add to the skillet with the browned onions & tempeh. Stir everything well together, lightly spray with oil if the tempeh is looking dried out. Reduce heat to medium low and cover the pan to help the broccoli steam a little in the heat.

Once the potatoes have begun to get nice and golden on most sides bring the pan out of the oven. Turn the heat off from the skillet and pour the onion, tempeh & broccoli mixture in with the potatoes. Give everything a good stir and add a little bit of sea salt, freshly ground pepper, a sprinkle of garlic pepper and a sprinkle of smoked paprika. Stir again, lightly spray with oil and return to oven for another 5 minutes

Remove stems from kale, wash well, drain (use a salad spinner if you have one), and shred. Remove roasting pan from oven and add kale over the top of the other ingredients. Lightly sprinkle the kale with nutritional yeast and return to oven for another 5 minutes.

Remove pan from oven to give everything a good stir. The kale should have wilted by now and you can really get the ingredients tossed together. Lightly spray with a little more oil as well as another sprinkle of nutritional yeast and then return to oven for another 5 minutes.

Once the kale has begun to crisp up on the top edges, remove pan from oven and turn off broiler. Serve hash with slices of avocado, fresh fruit, or salsa. Or all of those things!