We're delighted to share our Aunt Nettie with you. She's agreed to answer any questions you might ask about food, its preparation, and even clean-up tips. But we have to prepare you. She just might want to come right over to your house and help you fix dinner.
To send any questions to Ask Aunt Nettie, .
This month Aunt Nettie answers Christine's request for an easy potato casserole.
Howdy Christine,
Betcha thought I fergot 'bout ya. Truth is I wanted to razzle dazzle ya with a potato casserole that was gonna git ya singin' Yankee Doodle. I'm sure yer gonna love this one. It's easy to fix, but it does take some time ta cook up in the oven. Be sure 'n' tell me how ya like it!
Yer ever lovin' Aunt Nettie
Scalloped potatoes are an old-time creation that was probably popular in Grandma's kitchen. I've adapted this simple classic for the vegan table and enhanced it with cashews, miso, and nutritional yeast to create a dish that truly earns its name.
Paradise Scalloped Potatoes is one of the recipes from Zel Allen's cookbook The Nut Gourmet: Nourishing Nuts for Every Occasion published by Book Publishing Company in 2006.
Yield: 4 to 5 servings
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1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (Gas Mark 5) and have ready an 8 x 8-inch (20.3 x 20.3 cm) glass baking dish. Grind the cashews into a fine meal uising an electric mini-chopper/grinder or coffee grinder. Transfer to a medium size bowl and set aside.
2. To prepare the sauce for the potatoes, combine the lemon juice and miso in a small bowl. Blend with a spoon or small wire whip until smooth, and add to the ground cashews.
3. Stir in the soymilk, nutritional yeast, salt, cayenne, and pepper and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Spoon a small amount of the sauce into the baking dish using just enough to cover the bottom. Layer half the potatoes, green onions, and tomatoes in the baking dish and cover with half of the sauce. Make another layer with the remaining potatoes, green onions, and tomatoes, and finish with the remaining sauce. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil, shiny side down, and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
5. Remove the dish from oven, remove the foil, and sprinkle the top of the casserole with paprika and the ground walnuts before serving.
Our Aunt Nettie has a head like a hard disk. It's filled with megabytes of information about food and cooking. And she's just itchin' to share her learnin' with city folk who live in mortal fear of the stovetop.
Aunt Nettie grew up on the farm. She did not eat out of a can or reach into the freezer. There was no microwave to pop her food into. Everything she made was from scratch. All the food she ate was natural, without pesticides. It was grown right there on the family farm, and she had to cook to survive. At eighty-three years young she still leaps and bounds around the kitchen and can shake, rattle, and roll those pots and pans with the best of them.
Nowadays, Aunt Nettie just shakes her head and complains, "Nobody cooks anymore. They have no idea about puttin' a meal together." She's on a mission. She wants to help those younguns eat better so they can grow up healthy like her own eight kids.
