Autumn Writing Food: Mushroom Bake

Hearty cheesy mushroom bake with red lentils, succulent inside and crispy on top.
Gluten-free | Veggie

Ars longa, vita brevis, as I said to one of my students at the WolvLitFest last weekend: art is long and life is short. It's always a struggle to find enough time for all the projects. 

At least, that's what I meant to say. I said the first word, paused because my head was full of another Latin phrase (memento vivere: remember to live), so... basically I just said, with full thoughtful confidence, "ARSE" and then looked around for a bit.

I don't think she's going to let me live that one down. 

Anyway, the brevity of time (ARSE!) is why I send you these seasonal writing food recipes. We need to carve out time for our writing, often from already busy lives, and we need to remember to live. Perfect writing food is quick (either to make or to double up another day's cooking) so it doesn't steal your writing time, low-carb so your writing time isn't sabotaged by sleepiness, and as much a treat as writing itself. 

This autumn's is one of my absolute favourites for a chilly writing day, easy to double, triple, or even quadruple, and freezes beautifully (and without wasting freezer space, if you use my nifty tinfoil trick). It's one to make on a non-writing evening, in extra quantity, and then freeze the rest for future writing time.

Mushroom Bake

Serving and times

Prep & active cooking: 25–30 mins
Oven time: 35 mins
Serves: 4 (This scales up very easily; always round up the number of eggs, as they hold it together. There's a scaling-up table at the bottom for easy reference.)

Ingredients

For spicy tomato sauce (optional)

• 1 small onion, thinly sliced
• 2 chillies, sliced
• 1 tsp of hot chilli flakes / powder (optional)
• 1 tin of tomatoes (400g)
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper

For mushroom & lentil bake

• 175g red split lentils
• 350 ml vegetable stock (I use powdered bouillon and hot water)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 175g mushrooms, chestnut or portabello chopped / sliced
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1 stalk rosemary (5”), finely chopped
• 125g cheese, grated
• 1 egg, beaten

To serve

Baby spinach leaves (approx 50g per person) or side salad

Method 

Spicy tomato sauce

If you’re making the spicy tomato sauce, get this on the go first so it has plenty of time to simmer down (1 hour, ie the same time as the rest of the cooking)

• Thinly slice 1 small onion and 2 chillies.
• In a small pot, fry the ½ teaspoon black pepper, onion and chillies on a medium-high heat, for about 10 mins (you can start the other cooking meanwhile).
• Add the 1 tsp of hot chilli flakes / powderchilli powder if using, 1 tin of tomatoes and 1/3 teaspoon salt.
• Turn the heat down and let it simmer gently, uncovered, to reduce for about an hour.

Mushroom & lentil bake

• Heat the oven to 180 C.
• Chop one onion.
• In a pot, put the 175g lentils in the 350ml hot stock to simmer, covered, until soft (10 mins). When they’re done, just turn them off and leave them on the side for now.
• Meanwhile, slice the onions.
• Melt the 2 Tablespoons butter in a deep wide pan (the wider it is, the faster this goes; deep is helpful for when you’re stirring in the mushrooms)
• Add the onion to the pan and fry on medium for about 10 mins.
• Meanwhile, slice / chop the 175g mushrooms (you can just hack them all up – no need for finesse) and finely chop the stalk of rosemary
• Add the mushrooms and rosemary to the onions, turn up the heat, and fry till they’ve released all their water and the water has evaporated (5–10 mins)
• Meanwhile, beat 1 egg in a bowl large enough to contain all the ingredients and grate 125g cheese into the same bowl. Grease a baking dish (approx 20 x25 cm for this quantity).
• Mix the cooked lentils and fried onion & mushroom into the bowl with the cheese and egg.
• Pour it into the greased baking dish: we like it about ¾–1 inch deep, to get more crispy surface. Deeper is also fine, up to about 1.5 inches deep. Bake for 35–45 minutes.
• Serve on a bed of baby spinach with the spicy tomato sauce dolloped on top.

Want to freeze it? Fridge it overnight then wrap each portion size (eg for 2) in tinfoil.

Scaling Up

Onions	1	2	2.5	3	4
Mushrooms	175g	350g	450g	530g	700g
Cheese	125g	250g	300g	375g	500g
Lentils	175g	350g	450g	530g	700g
Stock	350ml	700ml	875ml	1 litre	1.4 litres
Butter	50g	100g	125g	150g	200g
Eggs	1	2	3	3	4

And a generous stalk or two of rosemary!

A note on quantities: The red portion fills a 20x25cm dish and serves 3-4, so the orange and green quantities need two of those or something twice the size. (You can also make it a bit thicker.) The teal and purple are going into wild quantities: you'd need the actual oven tray for those, or several dishes. (The oven tray also works well to do loads and cut it into smallish squares as part of a family buffet or picnic.)

Freezing Tip

If you're freezing bakes, you don't want your whole tray to disappear into the freezer and waste space. Put the bake in the fridge overnight so it goes nice and solid, then cut it into meal-portions and wrap each portion in tinfoil, pinching it shut at the top so that the tinfoil doubles up as their "baking tray" for when they're reheated. Masking tape for the labels doubles up to seal those folds. (Air-exposure in the freezer would give it "freezer burn".) Then you write the food name and date on the masking tape in Sharpie.

Happy writing! And remember: whenever you say "ars longa, vita brevis," finish the phrase.