I was very excited about Week 45 of the challenge. The theme was whole grains which is something I've been trying to incorporate more and more of in our diet (partially for health reasons). I decided to take the challenge up a level this week and make sure that any from-scratch homecooked meals would not include any grains except whole grains. We succeeded in that, eating mostly farro and quinoa (which I learned is a seed and not technically a grain, but many people still include it as a whole grain). But for the actual challenge I wanted to use a whole grain that I had never used before and I decided to go with millet.
First time making millet!
I had seen recipes from time to time using millet, but as far as A and I remember, neither of us had eaten millet before. I wasn't really sure what to do with it so I looked through some millet recipes before settling on this autumn millet bake recipe on 101 Cookbooks (which was based on a Bittman recipe). It was seasonal, which was great, and really simple to make, which was also really great since I'm such a slow cook. I followed the original recipe really closely, but ended up needing to make a lot of adjustments for cooking time at the end.
Ingredients for millet bake
We had all of the pantry ingredients on hand already for this recipe, so I just needed to pick up millet, cranberries, squash, and pumpkin seeds. I used:
- 3/4 cup of millet ($0.70)
- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)
- 2/3 lb of squash ($3.19)
- 1 cup of fresh cranberries ($0.67)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- dried sage ($0.10)
- honey ($0.35)
- 1 cup of chicken broth ($0.10)
- warm water ($0, for final amount keep reading)
- 1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds ($0.21)
The squash was an interesting shopping story. I intended to get the pre-cut butternut squash from Trader Joe's, but they were out of it and only had cut sugar pumpkin. I wasn't sure I wanted to eat sugar pumpkin, so I thought I'd check Whole Foods. No pre-cut boxes there, only the whole, which was really heavy, and if I was going to buy a whole butternut squash, I should have just gotten it from Trader Joe's. The only option I could figure out was to pick out pieces of butternut-looking squash from one of the pre-cut mixed vegetable bins (meals in minutes, or whatever they're called). I'm not entirely sure if it was butternut squash, or if it was acorn squash or something else. In any event, it was fine, whatever squash it was. I should have just gotten the whole butternut squash from Trader Joe's.
The total for this millet recipe was $5.57. I love when vegetarian dinners are so affordable and filling. (I realize that I used chicken broth, so this isn't really vegetarian, but it should be. I just didn't have vegetable broth or stock. I need to pick up some vegetable Better than Bouillon, but I forgot on our last visit.)
Layers upon layers
Putting together the baking dish was easy. What took the longest was cutting the squash into cubes. I set the oven to 375 degrees, and went through all the preliminary steps:
1. Rinse millet. [I was concerned that we wouldn't have a colander with holes small enough to wash the millet, but it just made it.]
2. Heat olive oil over medium heat in small skillet, add millet, toast it but don't overdo it. [The recipe said 3 minutes, but I barely made it for 2 minutes because I was worried about overdoing it.]
3. Spray baking dish with nonstick spray. Add millet as the bottom layer.
4. Add cubes of squash and cranberries on top of millet.
5. Season with salt, pepper, and sage. Drizzle honey all over the dish. [It was at least a few tbsp of honey and probably 1 tbsp of sage.]
6. Add the cup of chicken broth. Seal tightly with foil and bake undisturbed for 45 minutes.
That was easy.
After 45 minutes of baking...
After 45 minutes, the millet is supposed to be cooked through, but it came out looking like it did above with some fluffy grains but lots of grains that looked the same as they did when I put it in the oven. I added another 1/2 cup of water or so, like the recipe said, and popped it back into the oven (now up to 400 degrees) topped with the pumpkin seeds (how it looks below) and some additional salt, pepper, and sage. 10 minutes later, there wasn't much change. I added another cup of water. 10 minutes after that, I added another cup of water. I added water 3 more times after that, meaning I was up to almost 4 cups of liquid in addition to the cup of chicken broth that I used to begin with.
Pumpkin seeds!
I was starting to wonder what was going on, since the recipe said 1 cup of broth, and here I was going on 5 cups total. Part of it might be because I didn't use the equivalent of an entire butternut squash, but that couldn't account for 4 additional cups of water. I started reading more and more about millet, which was described as a "thirsty" grain, so that explains why every time I took it out of the oven, all the water had disappeared and there were still grains that hadn't fluffed up. Almost an hour after I expected the millet bake to be done, I finally called it quits on the few grains that were still not that cooked (luckily not as many at this point), because it was 10 pm and we really had to eat dinner. (Thank goodness we had an arugula and feta salad appetizer earlier in the evening!)
Finished product
I thought the millet bake was just okay when I first started eating it. I had been expecting something similar to a casserole when it came out of the oven, but it wasn't like that at all. It had the consistency of a fluffy porridge, and when I thought about the dish like eating oatmeal or porridge with some fruit and squash in it, then it was good. It makes a good oatmeal replacement. The squash itself didn't have a ton of flavor, so we couldn't tell exactly which squash it was, and the cranberries added some tartness, but not a lot of berry flavor. I think if I made this again, I would probably add more cranberries. I would also add a lot more seasonings (and broth, obviously). For an autumn bake, the sage was good, but I would throw in some cinnamon and nutmeg too, and maybe cloves. That would really give it that spice that accents all of the flavors of fall foods so spectacularly.
I have a little bit of millet left, since it's hard to measure out exactly 3/4 cup from the Whole Foods bulk bin, so maybe I'll experiment with it on the stove, making some sort of oatmeal-like thing for lunch next week. Even though this didn't turn out as planned (either in timing or how I imagined it), it was good, and I'm glad to have this introduction to fluffy millet!
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