Millet madness — millet bowls and millet burgers

Babysitting is fun.

We recently did a whole bunch of baby sitting for our grandkids while their Papa was out of town and their Mama had to play cello in the orchestra for a multi-night high school theater production at the school where she teaches music. One of our "duties" was to attend a talent show sponsored by Miss E's elementary school. Miss E is seven years old, and she is now brave enough to appear on a stage and perform.

The concert had a number of singers, a guitar soloist, lots of dancers, a couple of cheerleaders, and a hula hoop demonstration performed by Miss E and two friends. I'm not saying hula hooping isn't a talent — it certainly is — and we and the rest of the audience were exceedingly entertained by the performance, but something about it triggered an old memory of a performance her papa gave when he was about six.

He was a Suzuki violin student at the University of Wisconsin School of Music, and the recitals we attended for all the children from the youngest to the most accomplished, were impressive. They took place in a beautiful, small concert hall at the school of music. At the time he was learning violin, he was also obsessed with playing harmonica, and asked me if I thought he could play his harmonica at the violin recital. I didn't think so, but told him to ask his teacher, and the lovely Mary Beth Cullitan, after hesitating just a moment, said yes. Her goal was to encourage a love of music in whatever form it presented itself. So, at some point during the recital of classical string music, future-papa brought down the house with a polished and rousing harmonica rendition of Old Joe Clark. It was a weirdly thrilling parenting moment that I'll never forget.

Roasted carrots and chickpeas plus kale and tahini-umeboshi sauce over millet.

I love when a current happening unearths an old treasured memory, and I get to enjoy it again. It's a little like when a recent event, in this case a trip to San Francisco and Santa Cruz, inspires a string of cooking choices that play on memories, and become new favorites, reminding me in turn of the source of their inspiration. We were recently in Santa Cruz and I loved the lunch bowl I had at Café Gratitude so much I couldn't stop thinking about it. The grain in the bowl was millet, and I've become a little obsessed with millet, as you will see. Millet tends to be an overlooked food here, and in fact, most millet grown in the U.S. is grown for bird seed. Millet comes from a group of seeded grasses and is widely used for food in arid and semi-arid areas of the world. I like it a lot.

When we returned home from our trip, I made a millet bowl with roasted carrots and chickpeas, plus kale, topped with green onions and tahini sauce.It was so good it was shortly followed by a similar bowl with sweet potatoes, black beans and kale. The kale for the bowl partly came from a leftover deli container of PCC emerald city salad. There was just a tiny bit of salad left so I added a bunch more green onion and chopped kale to the container, mixed it with the remains, and used it for my bowl. I also warmed it up. Although the emerald city salad is meant to be served raw and cold, it also makes a great warm salad.

When I made the millet bowl, I made extra millet because I wanted to make millet burgers. Millet has a chewy texture that seems just right as a base for burgers, and the patties were wonderful. I wish I had written down a recipe, but I was using up leftovers that were in the refrigerator, adding spices like a mad scientist, and I have no precise memory of what went into the burgers. I think there were a couple of carrots, a few mushrooms, a bit of leftover kale, some chickpeas, perhaps some ground flax seed, half an onion, and other stuff I can't remember. The burgers were browned on the stove, then baked. This is the way I prefer to cook — without recipes — but then when something turns out well, sometimes I wish I could make it again.

Do you ever cook with millet? I've read both pros and cons about its nutritional value, but I guess that's true of most foods these days. Sigh.

I made beet loaf?

You know how recipes seem to cycle through the blogs, appearing almost simultaneously on the same day. One minute all the blogs have banana bread/banana muffins/banana cupcakes, etc., and the next they're all about peanut stew/peanut soup/peanut pie. Then, every so often, there's a run of beet burgers/beet loaf/beet balls. I've found myself contributing to the surfeit of many such confluences — but never to the ones involving beets. I don't love beets, and I don't hate them. I will eat one or two slices of baked, boiled or pickled beets if they are being served, but I almost never prepare them myself. I like borscht; I like raw beets as part of fresh juice; I like raw grated beets, but sadly, most beets that we bring into the house thinking we might use them, end up in the compost.

Last week I was home alone, and thought it would be a good idea to make a main-dish loaf of some sort that I could eat from all week — just heat and add vegetables — and not have to cook much. As I planned what would go into it, I remembered the beets languishing in the fridge, and decided I   might as well make a beet loaf once and for all. I didn't look up any recipes* because I was afraid that seeing a long list of ingredients that I had to find and measure would make me change my mind, and besides, I had my own list of ingredients that needed to be used up. For example, I had the end of an expired bag of TruRoots sprouted beans, some rather old millet, and the last five remaining mushrooms from a box on the verge of being tossed, as well as a giant jar of mushroom powder that I try to add to as many things as possible. Because I didn't use a recipe, and didn't accurately measure most of the ingredients, you should consider my recipe a guide. The loaf was so good I really couldn't believe it, and I made so much there was plenty left when my husband got home from his travels — he loved it, too. It could easily go into sandwiches or into tacos or nachos or under mashed potatoes for shepherd's pie. Or you could freeze the leftovers for a night when you don't have time to cook. Yesterday I formed some of the leftovers into a burger and sautéed it in a little oil — delicious with sriracha. You could use any beans you want — lentils would be good, and probably any grain, though I recommend trying millet for its taste and texture.

Beet loaf (guidelines) About 12 servings

• 1 cup dry TruRoots sprouted beans, cooked and drained (or lentils or other beans) 
• 1 cup dry millet cooked in 2 cups water for 20 minutes, then allowed to sit, covered for at least 20 minutes, fluffed with a fork
• 1 large onion, chopped 
• 5 large mushrooms, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and grated
• 1 smallish beet, peeled and grated
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 piece fresh ginger root, chopped,
• 1 Rapunzel no salt added bouillon cube, mashed into hot beans
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke (more if you really like liquid smoke)
• hemp seeds (opt.)
• sunflower seeds (opt. but adds a nice crunch)
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon mushroom powder (opt.)
• salt and pepper to taste
• herbs and spices as desired (I used crushed red pepper)

1. Sauté onion until almost soft. Add mushrooms and cook until soft. Add carrots and beets and cook until wilted.
2. In a food processor, place beans, bouillon, cocoa, garlic and ginger and buzz until well-combined.
3. Add half the millet and half the sautéed veggies and buzz until well-combined but not puréed.
4. Place the bean mixture into a large bowl with the remaining millet and veggies and mix. 
5. Mix in ketchup, liquid smoke, hemp seeds (if using), sunflower seeds (if using), mushroom powder (if using), salt, pepper, herbs and spices to taste.
6. Press into an oiled 10" x 13" baking dish. Glaze the top with a thin layer of ketchup.
7. Bake at 350˚F for 45 minutes. Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Serve with gravy.

* If I were going to look for recipes, I'd search here and here and also here. Try searching for beet burgers as well as beet loaf. I know I've seen recipes on all three blogs, though I've never been in the right mood to make note of them because, you know, they contained beets. Well, I was wrong. Yes, I was.