Headliner lentil mushroom loaf with quick balsamic glaze

At a time when we’re being bombarded with news feeds from every device that all seem to trend toward the negative, I offer you a good news story everyone can celebrate. Headliner lentil mushroom lentil loaf with quick balsamic glaze unites diners under one common goal – a deliciously satisfying, plant-based celebration of great food.

Not mom’s loaf – exactly

Growing up, our family dinners were usually a combination of debating the news of the day and home cooked meals. I have no idea how my mom managed to cook up a story of ‘meat and potatoes’ meals and accomplish her full time job, let alone the mob that came home shouting ‘what’s for dinner’ knowing full well that full service would begin promptly at 6:30.

Let's make our not-mom's lentil mushroom loaf

I remember mom’s meatloaf although I suspect that my memory is a bit tainted, because I remember looking forward to it.  This is contrary to the fact that after leaving home, I went decades without eating it, let alone making it. Maybe it was nostalgia or just longing for a time when the larger world didn’t feel in such disarray, but after my moratorium, I developed a huge craving for homemade ‘loaf’. You can probably guess what happened next…

The ties that bind

Just like mom’s meatloaf recipe, everyone has their own take on lentil mushroom loaf. That said, there are a few requirements that need to be addressed. The first, which will remind you of every burger you’ve ever made or eaten, is the binder. If you’ve tried my baked chickpea burgers, samosa burgers or Mediterranean veggie burgers (to name a few), you’ll recognize my use of rolled oats to bind.

Seeds to the rescue

Although the oats held up their end of the bargain in terms of binders, the lentil mushroom loaf proved to require a bit more binder/thickening agent. Just a little something else. So, I turned toward another standard of many a plant-based kitchen – ground chia or flax seeds. If you aren’t keeping a little container of ground seeds, start doing it. The process is simple, you grind them and store them someplace dry. Not only are ground chia seeds great for setting a lentil loaf, they thicken up a chipotle cream or create the perfect cornbread topping for lentil tamale pie like nothing else.

And an egg substitute

I went with this option after my first trial and the famous crumbling lentil loaf incident because, when my memory kicked in, I recalled the egg my mom used in her meatloaf. Turns out that a tablespoon of ground chia or flax seeds with 2 tablespoons of water makes a perfect egg substitute. I discovered that when making my lentil loaf, I didn’t need to mix the ground chia seeds for this recipe, just 2 tablespoons of hit the mark and the headline in the kitchen was ‘loaf set’.

Reinvention of past recipes and habits

Obviously, I left my past (real or invented) of meatloaf the minute I set out to create an entirely plant-based lentil mushroom loaf. I didn’t even consider lentils as a meat ‘replacement’ as I’ve long since stopped trying to reinvent my meat laden eating past. About all this recipe has left with my past is the word ‘loaf’. That’s not old news – it’s an entirely new headline.

The trick with this loaf relies on fully cooking the lentils. You want them to break down when you process them with the cooked veggies, chopped walnuts, oats, ground chia or flax seeds and all the rest of your ingredients. Try to resist the urge to process everything until it’s smooth. A bit of texture it good in a loaf. You want to see bits of onion and carrots. Texture is another reason I reserved 1 cup of the cooked lentils and mixed them in with a spoon.

Prepare for loaf baking

If our headline is lentil mushroom loaf, then the subheading should be ‘adjust your baking dish accordingly’. Here’s what I learned with respect to that particular new item. If you use a glass baking dish (which is my preference), your lentil loaf might decide to stick to the bottom. It’s a bit frustrating after making your perfect loaf, baking it to perfection and then having to debate its removal from the dish.

If you use a non-stick loaf pan, you can just skip all this over. Proceed to spreading your ingredients straight into the pan. If not, I used my tried and true (possibly over reliance) on parchment paper. It’s entirely possible that this has more to my aversion to not scouring dishes, but if you spread your loaf mixture into a parchment lined dish, you can avoid a potentially sticky situation. Always a good thing.

Quick balsamic glaze

We might all be satisfied with just a ‘good’ headline, but hey, our lentil mushroom deserves greatness and that’s easily accomplished with a quick balsamic glaze which is seriously, 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar accompanied by tomato paste and maple syrup. Because I had my own balsamic vinegar reduction ready in the fridge, I ended up with a nice thick glaze. Don’t despair if you don’t have reduced balsamic on hand, a good quality balsamic will work great. If you go that route, you may want to adjust the tomato paste upward by a tablespoon depending on how thick you want it.

Final thoughts

If our happy dinnertime headline is lentil mushroom loaf with quick balsamic glaze, then the good news story is surely that while you might not be running home to gin up mom’s recipes, you can set a happy, healthy table of your own making. You can even direct the conversation away from the gloomy new of the day to more optimistic happenings, because no matter what, there is always a good news headline somewhere. Good food is even better with heaping side dishes of laughter and joy. I’ll take a second helping of that thank you very much – oh and more lentil mushroom loaf please. Peace.

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