Even though The Abridged Edition of the Saturday Evening Post Fiber & Bran Better Health Cookbook (Cory SerVaas, M.D., Charlotte Turgeon, and Fred Birmingham, 1977) is not a vegetarian cookbook, it does have a pretty good selection of vegetarian recipes. Some of them are exactly what I expect from old cookbooks: a big pile of random veggies on top of a starch.
In this case, the recipe recommends millet instead of the more usual brown rice. That gets topped with some sautéed veggies and a whole lot of parboiled veggies in the water from their parboiling adventure. No real sauce-- just cheese and a garnish of beets on top.
Of course, there's the obligatory veggie loaf as well.
This one is better than a lot of older veggie loaf recipes, though. It's got tomato puree and cheese for some flavor, so it won't just be a brick of brown rice and veggies. Plus, it's a relatively small vegetarian meatloaf, so hopefully it will get finished off before everyone is too sick of it.
There's also a selection of veggie burgers. One sounds like it could be a euphemism for a testicle-based dish...
... but "Nut Burgers" refers to the cashews and walnuts in the recipe. This even calls for chili powder, hot sauce, or other seasonings in addition to a full cup of cheese, so it might not taste like a lump of cardboard!
Another recipe just sounds like a carb to put between more carbs.
Put your oat burger on some whole wheat buns for an extremely brown and grainy meal!
And one recipe just sounds sad.
I mean "Meatless Bran Patties" sounds like something they'd serve in jail as a punishment meal for somebody who broke the rules.
If everything seems a bit too dry and bland, the book even offers a Blended Cashew Gravy to try to alleviate the issue.
Two tablespoons of onion powder sounds like a lot, but I guess at least the gravy will have some kind of flavor, other than "slurry."
Even if the recipes aren't always terribly tempting, I've got to appreciate that this cookbook put more effort into the vegetarian recipes than I would expect in a 1970s non-vegetarian cookbook. Yay?
I wonder how well their loaves, burgers, and patties stayed together. I wonder if they would work better if they were turned into something that could be cooked like pancake batter. Of course, then it would look like barf on a griddle, but that's probably what it would taste like anyway.
ReplyDeleteYeah-- most of that stuff doesn't look like it would hold together. You need gluten, eggs, or some other binder if you don't want it to end up more like a scramble than a burger.
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