Whole Foods for the Whole Family, published by La Leche League International, is one of the weirdest cookbooks I own. First, there’s that goofy photo on the front cover, with wild-n-crazy Dad scooping spaghetti right into chef-hatted Junior’s mouth, while behind her simpering mug Mom is clearly resigned to thinking, "I’m never going to get that dress shirt clean." Then there’s the style: from the bright-red comb binding to the names and hometowns of the ladies who submitted the recipes, it screams "PARISH FUNDRAISER COOKBOOK."
And when you get past all that — what an odd collection of recipes it is. It’s as if Betty Crocker had a separated-from-birth twin sister — Rainbow Crocker — who was raised by hippies on an organic farm. (Catholic hippies, though.) Betty gives you "Guidelines for Proper Freezer Storage," "Timetable For Blanching Vegetables," "Food Safety Tips" and a glossary of such technical terms as "shred," "cube," "bake," "scald," and (I kid you not) "refrigerate." Rainbow, on the other hand, provides helpful articles on churning your own butter, growing your own sprouts, identifying different kinds of tofu, introducing solid food to a nursing baby, dyeing Easter eggs by boiling them with onion skins or blueberries.
There are a lot of seventies-style health food ingredients like soybeans and bulgur and wheat germ, with comments from the submitters like "I tried for years to find a soybean-based casserole my family would eat, and finally I tried this and now everyone loves it!" There are a lot of casseroles, containing not cream of mushroom soup but Medium White Sauce made from scratch. There is a recipe for Beef ‘n’Liver Sloppy Joes.
All this is to say, despite the very weird nature of this cookbook, there are a handful of recipes — even some of the weird ones — that I make again and again. If you want a whole-foods version of an Americana recipe, it’s the first place to look. For example, suppose you are a beginner cook and you want to make 100% whole wheat pancakes. Normal cookbooks tend to instruct you to make pancakes with all-purpose flour and suggest that you could substitute "up to a quarter" of the flour with whole wheat, you know, if you can stand that sort of thing. This one, well, it just gives you the whole wheat version. (Takes a bit more liquid than white flour pancakes.)
OK, so: one of the recipes my family loves is the salmon loaf. I’m not guaranteeing you will love it. It’s kind of a weird recipe with weird seventies health food ingredients. But it’s very easy, and a nice way to fit a bit more fish into your diet with little forethought required. I think it comes out of the oven a little dry (especially if you’re expecting something like meatloaf or, conversely, like fried salmon patties) but that is easily overcome by serving it with some kind of a sauce or condiment. My kids and husband are perfectly happy with ketchup. I have served it with cucumber-yogurt-dill sauce — like tzatziki. I have served it with white sauce made with dill and a little horseradish. I have served it with aioli. Tonight (while my kids and husband put ketchup on theirs) I used tartar sauce from a jar, and thought it perfectly fine. We had it with olive-oil-and-lemon-sauteed asparagus and summer squash, buttered bread, and sliced tomatoes.
Here’s my slightly adapted version of their recipe. Serves 6-8.
- 2 cans (14.75 oz each) "traditional" salmon, e.g., with the bones and skin — I prefer the more expensive red sockeye, but pink is ok. Trust me, you won’t notice the bones.
- About 3/4 cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup each: rolled oats, oat bran, and wheat germ
- 1 1/2 (that’s 3/2) Tbsp lemon juice, more if you like
- 2 Tbsp finely minced onion, more if you like
- 1/2 c roasted and salted sunflower seeds
- Salt and pepper to taste
Drain salmon, reserving liquid. Mash salmon with its bones and skin in a bowl. Mash it really well. Try to make the skin and bones disappear. I use a potato masher. Mix salmon liquid and milk to make a little bit less than 2 cups. Add remaining ingredients and mix very well. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes or so.
For a drier, firmer loaf: Line a 9×13 glass baking dish with parchment paper and oil it or spray with nonstick cooking spray. In that pan, form the mixture into 1 large or 2 small flattish, ovalish loaves. OR for a moister, crumblier loaf, divide the mixture between 2 oiled loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees until firm, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Now for the bleg. When I make meatloaf, I top it with a ketchup-vinegar-sugar glaze and run it under the broiler till it’s bubbly and a bit caramelized. It’s terrific and everyone raves about it. I would really like to figure out some sort of sweet glaze that would work like that for the salmon loaf. Only not tomatoey like ketchup. What do you think might work? Something teriyaki-ish? Or fruity, like a chutney? Or should I just stick with the tartar sauce?
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