Editor’s kasha soup with roasted whole kasha, leeks, carrots, and topped with angelica archangelica!

The Vegetarian Resource Group received a note from a food bank coordinator in Oklahoma. He teaches limited resource kids in after school programs how to cook and eat healthy foods and has used Nancy Berkoff’s and VRG materials in doing this. He was going to try the Broccoburgers from Nancy Berkoff’s Vegan in Volume, but wanted to clarify what we meant by Kasha in the recipes.

Chef Nancy said:

We are speaking about a medium grind of buckwheat (or kasha)…. not the really fine (as in “cream of”) and not the whole buckwheat (that looks like small pellets). In many areas, in retail stores, this is sold as “medium kasha.”

If kasha is not convenient, you can use short grained white or brown rice (also called “sushi rice”)… or even medium-grind corn meal. If you are going to use one of these substitutes, I would suggest doing perhaps a 1/4 batch. For texture, it’s helpful to let the burger mixture “rest” in the refrigerator for several hours… or even overnight.

If you have some TVP and are familiar working with it, you can substitute some of the kasha for this. Actually, a hospital cook told me she used Hamburger Helper, without the hamburger, for this recipe (since the Hamburger Helper is seasoned TVP) and that came out fine!

To order Vegan in Volume, see http://www.vrg.org/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=10

For Nancy’s article on Working With Food Banks, see
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2007issue1/vj2007issue1.pdf