I made dinner for Anne and I last night for the first time in awhile (pre-holiday insanity and being around family cut down on my cooking opportunities. I made it up as I went along and Anne declared it "one of the best things" that I had made. I didn't necessarily agree (amongst other things it' s a very simply meal), but here you go if you're interested. Cut the bacon and replace the chicken stock with veggie stock to make it vegetarian.
Anne's Autumn Grain Awesomeness
Ingredients:
3 Strips of Bacon
3 Carrots, diced
1-2 Parsnips, depending on size, diced
2 Tablespoons of Rosemary, chopped up into little bits
4-5 cloves of garlic (again, depending on size) thinly sliced
2 Shalllots, thinly sliced
1-2 Cups (depending on personal preference) Cauliflower chopped into bite sized pieces
1 cup wheatberries
1 cup vegetable or chicken stock
1 cup water
Lemon juice
Olive Oil
(1) Start the wheatberries. Have you never had wheatberries? If not, they're awesome, you should eat them all the time. They're like halfway between rice and farro, and cheap! And whole grain! Anyway, you cook wheatberries like you do rice (twice as much liquid as grain in a pot, bring it to a boil then then turn it down super low and cover). The only difference is that wheatberries take longer than rice to cook, up to twice as long (40-45 minutes) actually. I find that timing them is not helpful. After about half an hour, start checking in on them regularly. You may need to let them boil with the lid off because there's too much liquid, etc, so just adjust as necessary.
(2) in a medium to large sautee pan, fry the bacon until crisp. Remove the bacon to towels to drain. You should have 1-2 tablespoons of fat in the pan, unless your bacon is super fatty. If you have more, take some of the fat out, but remember fat is flavor, capiche?
(3) Make sure the pan has cooled a bit and toss in the garlic and shallots with salt and pepper and sweat them down in the bacon fat until just soft (they're gonna be cooking for a while, so don't worry about getting them totally carmelized or anything yet)
(4) Dump in the carrots and parsnips. Here's the thing about parsnips. They're awesome. But they have this fibrous tube that runs down the middle and is completely inedible no matter how well you cook them. Make sure you slice this bit out. How i do this is I quarter the parsnips and then simply slice (Away from myself! I have blood on my ceiling to prove how necessary this is) the fibrous bit out, and then continue along my merry dicing way. Add in with carrots and parsnips more salt, more pepper, and a pinch of the rosemary.
(5) Don't stir the veggies too much, a little carmelization here is good news, but keep em moving so nothing burns. When you get to the point that they're starting to brown a little bit and are soft, dump the cauliflower in.
(6) Season with pepper and rosemary (it's probably salty enough at this point). Cook the cauliflower to your preference. I like mine tinged a bit gold with heat, maybe a little hint of brownness peaking in here and there, not too soft on the inside.
(7) Crumble the bacon over this, add some more rosemary. Give it a minute for the flavors to come together and then add in the wheatberries. Cook for a couple of more minutes, stirring occasionally until it looks delicious.
(8) To serve: Put it in a bowl, sprinkle a final pinch of fresh rosemary over it, add a little bit of olive oil and a splash of lemon juice, enjoy.
Makes Four Servings
QUICK THOUGHT: Another way to do this would be to add in a tablespoon of tomato paste with the carrots and parsnips (you want the sugars in the paste to carmelize a bit) and then instead of (or in addition to) adding in the cauliflower, add in some canned plum tomatoes, maybe 6 or 8 oz. worth (mashed up with a fork before hand to keep them from exploding) and a little bit of chicken or vegetable stock, and then letting that cook down a bit and adding in the wheatberries.
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