Savory Mushroom Pecan Loaf

Name: Savory Mushroom Pecan Loaf
Prep time: 120 min
Cook time: 45 min
Ingredients: 1 Tablespoon oil (good quality , like olive oil); 2 Tablespoons Flax Seed; 5 Tablespoons water; ½ cup shallots (finely diced); 1 cup yellow onion (chopped); ½ cup carrots (grated); 1 cup red pepper (finely diced); 1 cup celery (finely diced); 3 Teaspoons minced garlic; 4 cups crimini mushrooms , baby bellas (roughly chopped, about 1 pound. You can do it in the food processor or blender on pulse.); ½ cup white wine (make sure it is vegan and gluten free, ok to substitute vegetable broth.); 3 cups pecans (broken pieces are ok, roughly chopped); 1 cup gluten free panko bread crumbs; 1/4 cup fresh parsley (finely chopped); 1 Tablespoon fresh sage (finely chopped); 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme (finely chopped); 1 Tablespoon fresh Oregano (finely chopped); 1 Tablespoon "Chick N" veggie bouillon or 1 vegan bouillon cube; 1 Teaspoon Salt; ½ Teaspoon Pepper

Jane Fox Friday, October 30, 2020 3 Comments

Vegan and Gluten Free
Serendipity Jane
Original Recipe: Jane Fox

Savory Mushroom Pecan Loaf is a delicious savory main dish that combines pecans, mushrooms and herbs in a meaty loaf. It’s the perfect main dish for your holiday dinner.

My Inspiration

For many years, when it came to big holiday gatherings, I would prepare a huge feast with a turkey or ham as the main feature, to appease everyone else. I would resign myself to just having side dishes as my feast. Last year, at Thanksgiving, I said “enough!” Instead of a giant bird, I asked the butcher for 8 turkey legs, marinated them, and set them on the table with the side dishes for the meat eaters. Planning the menu around my plant based and gluten free diet, I made a nut loaf to serve as the main feature. It was good! But it was JUST good. I was shooting for fabulous! So this year I re-imagined the nut loaf into my own version with more flavor and more color! Savory Mushroom Pecan Loaf is this this year’s star of the show on the Thanksgiving table and is sure to become a requested family favorite for all occasions.

The Ingredients

The Mushrooms:

The cremini mushrooms are sometimes called baby bellas. Before using the mushrooms, you will want to make sure that you clean them well. I fill a large bowl with water and let them soak, then wash each one giving it a rinse under running water. Don’t skip this step. Unlike bagged spinach, even the packaged mushrooms need to be cleaned.

Pecans: The pecans provide the protein in this recipe. There’s no reason to pay the higher price for pecan halves since the nuts will be finely chopped. Broken pieces are generally less expensive. Make sure they are fresh. Nuts can go bad quickly if not stored in a cool place.

Garlic: I use jarred minced garlic because it saves a ton of time, but you can use fresh minced cloves if you prefer.

Herbs: The fresh herbs give an amazing depth of flavor. I grow them in my backyard so I always have them handy. Fresh herbs can be expensive, they do take time to prepare. If you need to, you can substitute dried herbs to replace the fresh. You will need to reduce the quantities to 1 teaspoon of dried to replace 1 Tablespoon of fresh.

Fresh Vegetables: I’ve used shallots along with the onions for an extra punch of flavor. The carrots and peppers bump up the nutrition but also bring color and texture to the finished loaf. If you don’t like carrots, you can eliminate them. You can substitute yellow or orange for the red peppers, or leave them out completely. Don’t use the green pepper in this recipe because the flavor is too strong and would overpower the dish.

The Flax Seeds: When combined with water and allowed to soak, the ground flax seeds will form a gelatinous mixture that is perfect to use as an egg substitute. The mixture, know as a flax egg, will help hold the ingredients that make up the nut loaf all together.

Bread Crumbs: Along with the flax egg, the breadcrumbs help hold the loaf together. Just make sure the Panko bread crumbs are gluten free.

Wine: The addition of wine helps gives an extra depth of flavor. For those who don’t drink alcohol, there is no worry, since the actual alcohol evaporates in the cooking process and leaves just the yummy flavor. If you are still hesitant to use wine, substitute a good flavorful vegetable broth in its place.

My choice is Chardonnay by Sutter Home. It is both vegan and gluten free. You wouldn’t think you’d have to check as to whether wine is vegan or if it’s gluten free, but you do. Although I use wine for cooking, I don’t drink it, so I love that Sutter Home sells a cardboard carrier containing four mini bottles of wine. This allows me to use just the amount I need without worrying about the leftover portion going bad.

The Process

To Start:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan with parchment paper.
Grind the flax seed in a coffee grinder or spice mill, mix with the 5 Tablespoons of water, and set aside. Let set for about 15 minutes. This mixture becomes the “flax egg.”
Peel the onions and shallots. Quarter the shallots and cut the onions in to eighths. Put these pieces in the blender and hit pulse. Once or twice is enough. You don’t want to overprocess them. My eyes are always irritated when I chop onions, so this is a nice shortcut, since, in this recipe, the pieces don’t have to be perfect little cubes.

Wash the peppers, celery, and carrots and trim the ends.
Grate the carrots.
Finely dice the red peppers and the celery.
Coarsely chop the fresh cremini mushrooms. They don’t have to be sliced. Set them aside. They will be mixed with the other vegetables later.

Pour a Tablespoon of oil into a large frying pan and when it is hot, add the onions, shallots, celery, peppers and carrots. Saute until the onions are translucents.

Once the onions have softened, clear an area of the pan and add the garlic. Cook and stir about a minute until you can smell the garlic, then stir the garlic in with the rest of the mixture.
Add the wine to the pan.
Now is the time to add the fresh mushrooms in with the other vegetables. Stir occasionally. Let the mixture cook until the mushrooms release their water. Cook the mixture until most of the liquid has evaporated. As you can see in the photo, most of the liquid is gone but the mixture is not completely dry.

While the mushroom and vegetables are cooking, chop the pecans by putting them in the blender and hitting pulse. You want them to be finely chopped but not over processed or powdery since the texture of the nuts will give the loaf a nice meaty texture.
Measure out one cup of Gluten free Panko bread crumbs and combine it with nuts in a large bowl. the bowl needs plenty of room because you will eventually need space to add the vegetable mixture later.
Stir in the parsley, oregano, and the thyme in with the panko crumbs and the nuts.
Add the flax eggs and mix well. The mixture will be slightly moistened.
Set this mixture aside until the vegetable in the pan are done.

Putting it all Together:

When the mushroom vegetable mixture is done, add it to the bowl with the nut mixture.
Stir the two together until they are well combined.

Place the combined mixture into the parchment lined loaf pan.
Press the mixture firmly and pack it all the way to the top.
Place the loaf in to the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes.
To test if the loaf is done, insert the blade of a case knife in to the loaf. When the blade comes out clean, the loaf is done.

It’s Done! Now What?

Remove the loaf from the oven when done.
Let it rest for about 10 minutes.

To remove the nut loaf from the pan, place the plate or platter that you plan to serve it on, upside down over the loaf.

Flip the plate over and lift the pan off of the loaf.
Remove the parchment

Use herbs and chopped vegetables to garnish.

Savory Mushroom Pecan Loaf is moist and flavorful enough to serve alone, but you can serve it with Mushroom gravy if you’d like.

Enjoy!

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