Mushroom and spinach loaf

We had a vegetarian lunch today, as healthy as I could make it. I was going to make a meal featuring mushrooms and bean sprouts, but when my grocery delivery arrived this morning, the bean sprouts had been replaced with a pre-cut salad. Not a single sprout in sight. No thanks. That meant I was stuck with a load of mushrooms, so off to the Pinerest Jungle I went.

Luckily I enjoy a vegetarian meal every so often, because what I found was a mushroom and spinach loaf with rice. I looked really good and I could imagine it going nicely alongside a tomato salad. When it came to cooking the loaf, I had an issue with the rice. I try not to eat it too often and we had it for dinner last night. As luck would have it, there were three parsnips in the fridge and the needed using up. Parsnips are often great for replacing rice, so why not try. What's the worst that can happen?

While I was in swapping mode, I also decided to let celeriac take the place of celery. Celery is one of those vegetables that I would love to love, but I can't bear it. I have tried and tried and tried again, but no. Instead I almost always have celeriac at home and it goes into every dish that calls for celery.

The recipe was easy enough to follow, although I had to make some amendments due to using grated parsnips instead of rice. Yes, I decided to grate the roots rather than blitzing them into rice. Why? Because it was raining and the food processor was in the shed. If it meant avoiding going outside, I'd look for alternatives in the kitchen.

In regards to baking the loaf in the oven, I followed the instructions, although I should have gone with my gut instinct. I'm a huge fan of greasing a tin when baking a cake, but I always dust it with flour or bread crumbs as well. Only greasing when baking this mushroom loaf sounded dodgy and it was. I should have lined the tin with greaseproof paper instead. If you make this loaf, I really
can recommend papering instead of greasing and you may end up with a prettier end product than I did.

To make the loaf my way, you need:

3 medium parsnips, grated or turned into rice

10 ounces mushrooms, sliced

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely shopped 

3 ounces sun dried tomatoes, chopped

3 handfuls fresh spinach, chopped

1 chicken stock cube 

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp English mustard

basil or taragon

salt & pepper

a chunk of celeriac / 2 celery stalks

4 eggs

1. Get all ingredients out.

I went hunting for a stock cube after taking this photo.

2. Chop the onion, garlic, celeriac and mushrooms.

3. Soften the onion and add garlic, celeriac and mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms have softened and any liquid has evaporated.

4. While the mushrooms are cooking, add the eggs, mustard, stock cube and water to a large bowl.

5. Whisk the egg mixture until smooth.

6. Chop the spinach and sun dried tomatoes.

7. Grate or blitz the parsnips to rice.

8. By now the mushrooms should be done.

9. Add the parsnip rice and the spinach to the mushroom.

According to the recipe, the cooked rice should be added straight to the egg mixture, but because I used parsnip rice, I wanted to cook it with the rest of the vegetables. It needed very little cooking, so adding it with the spinach worked well.

10. Cook until the spinach has wilted. Season with salt, pepper and your choice of herbs.

11. Add the sun dried tomatoes, mix and take the pan off the heat.

12. Add the vegetables to the egg mixture.

13. Mix well.

14. Transfer the mixture to a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper and flatten until smooth. 

The recipe said to pour it into a well greased loaf tin, which I did, but if check photo 16 and see why this isn't a good idea. I'll try the greaseproof paper next time.

15. Bake at 200 degrees for 40-45 minutes until the edges have turned nicely brown.

16. Flip the loaf onto a cutting board.

This is why I would suggest using greaseproof paper instead of a greased tin. The bottom of my loaf stuck when I did the flip trick and I had to scrape and press to make it look like a loaf again.

17. Serve and enjoy.

I really enjoyed this and will definitely make it again. It could potentially be even better with proper rice, but I was happy with how the grated parsnips preformed, so I'll shall stick with them next time as well. I'm pretty sure other kinds of vegetable rice will work. They need to replace 1/2 uncooked rice, however much that makes when it is cooked.