As Thanksgiving approaches, I thought it might be fun to play around with some recipes using aMYLK for savory side (or main) dishes. Because I spend so much time at farmers markets, and because I'm lucky enough to be able to trade for the bulk of my food, I have a lot of access to incredible produce...the kind of produce you look at and think "I've never seen anything so beautiful."
I tend to get into repetitive patterns with everyday meals. Let's just say that I eat a lot of roasted veggies and salad greens. This past weekend, I decided to stretch myself.
My friend, Natasha and her partner Nathan own Canby Farm Kitchen, a regenerative and sustainable 11 acre farm that provides specialty produce to many of Portland's best restaurants. She and I like to trade on Sundays at the Montavilla Farmers Market and last weekend she had some incredible looking celery root, aka celeriac. Natasha said it was her pride and joy and that she'd been lovingly tending it for months. I picked out a smallish bulb with bright green leaves that looked incredibly nourishing and promised myself that I'd actually cook something with it.
What to make? Inspired by Alice Waters' book The Art of Simple Food, I made a gratin! These days, I'm mostly eating a lectin free diet (learn more about lectins from Dr. Steven Gundry) and while most gratins are made from potatoes, celeriac and parsnips are a good addition/substitution. I also added some tiny chestnut mushrooms from my friends at Mindful Mushrooms (which I traded for gingersnap aMYLK). If you add mushrooms, sauté them first in some olive oil or avocado oil with half of a small onion sliced in rainbows.
Without further ado, here is the Alice Water's + aMYLK Gratin recipe! If you are vegan, omit the parmesan cheese and it will still be amazing.
You'll need olive oil, garlic, an unsweetened aMYLK mini, a couple of potatoes, 1/4 lb of mushrooms, a tiny onion, a small celeriac bulb and two large parsnips, (and if you're not vegan, freshly grated parmesan cheese).
- Rub a pie dish or gratin dish with olive oil and a clove of garlic.
- Peel and slice two small yellow potatoes, and the thick ends of two parsnips into rounds that are about 1/16th inch thick (use a mandoline if you have one). Using your knife, cut off the top and bottom of the celeriac and the brown sides exposing only the white flesh and cut that into similar slices. I ended up cutting my bulb in half and then using the mandoline to slice it.
- Make a layer of parsnips overlapping them like shingles on the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle with salt and dust with parmesan. Make a second layer of celeriac and season with salt and parmesan. Sprinkle on your sautéed mushrooms and onion. Add your final layer of potatoes and finish with salt, parmesan and a sprinkle of finely chopped parsley.
- Open a mini bottle of unsweetened almond or hazelnut aMYLK (8.5 fl. oz) and carefully pour it over the dish. The liquid should come up to the bottom of the top layer of potatoes.
- Drizzle olive oil over the top.
- Bake at 350 for about an hour. (Alice says to use a metal spatula to press the vegetables down half way through cooking.) It should come out golden and bubbling.