Cottage Cheese Patties

Recipe by Peggy Ray, Tyler, Texas

This one comes from the Tyler, Texas SDA cookbook, courtesy of my friend Peggy Ray. Peggy comes up with some great recipes for potluck.  This one is a combination of oatmeal patties and cottage cheese loaf only it eschews the Kellogg's Special K in favor of oatmeal.  I had a bunch of cottage cheese and no Special K, so I went with Peggy's cottage cheese patties tonight. You really won't believe how good these things are. They have this incredible medley of flavors that is just amazing.  Here's how you do it.

Ingredients:

• 1 c. cottage cheese
• 1/2 small onion chopped
• 3/4 cup pecans or walnuts
• 1 tsp. soy sauce
• 1 egg plus 1 egg white
• 1/2 cup multi-grain cracker crumbs
• 3/4 cup oatmeal
• 2 pkgs (2 tbsp) George Washington Golden Broth or powdered chicken flavored broth
• 1 can French's fried onions

Gravy:

• 2 cans mushroom soup
• 1 can of water

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl (except for the fried onions)
2. Let set for 10 minutes or so after thoroughly mixed
3. Form into patties and brown in oil. 
4. Make up gravy in saucepan or skillet
5. Pour small layer of gravy in bottom of a casserole dish.
6. Add a light layer of French fried onions
7. Lay patties over the top and drizzle the rest of the gravy over it.
8. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 300 degrees.
9. Layer on top with the rest of the French fried onions.
10. Bake for 5 minutes more

Serving Suggestion:

Peggy Ray

Around here we just go ahead and have them for supper. If you're taking them to potluck, cover the casserole dish with foil or the lid that goes with it on Friday afternoon and refrigerate. Heat it up in the church warmer starting as soon as you get to the church on Sabbath morning so it's good and hot by lunch time. You might want to leave an extra pan of these at home because if you're like most potluck contributing cooks you line up last in line and by the time you get there the good stuff is gone and you're stuck with lentils and cabbage.

Thank you soooooooo much for this recipe, Miss Peggy. We love your culinary work.

Tom King

Cottage Cheese Loaf - Nutty Version

I got hungry for cottage cheese loaf and whipped up this one.  I changed a few ingredients thanks to some suggestions from readers and a couple of ingredients I wanted to try out for a nuttier version. If you guys are allergic to nuts, this one is not recommended. Here's the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 large carton cottage cheese (24-32 oz. size)
• 5 eggs (higher in protein with the extra egg and binds the extra oatmeal)
• 1/2 cup pecan meal (If you have pecans, dump a cup in the blinder and whiz it up till it's meal)
• 1/2 cup slivered toasted almonds
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 2 Tbsp peanut butter
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 packet Lipton's onion soup mix
• 1 regular box of Special K cereal
• 1/2 stick of butter

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Crush the Special K in a large bowl. Grind up the pecans to make meal if you don't have pecan meal.
3. Stir in oatmeal, peanut butter, oil, soup mix, cottage cheese and eggs. Mix together thoroughly.
4. In 9x13 casserole dish, melt butter.
5. Press loaf mixture into the casserole dish
6. Sprinkle toasted almond slivers over the top
7. Bake in the oven for 40 to 60 minutes until the top is brown and the edges are crisp and pull slightly away from the sides of the pan.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:

Cover and hold in the refrigerator for tomorrow's potluck or serve immediately. I tend to go with "serve immediately" as you can tell from the picture above. This version has a nuttier flavor than the original recipe. The oatmeal doesn't much change the taste and gives you more of it if you need to feed a larger group. An extra egg covers the extra ingredients. I love this stuff. If you haven't checked it out, here's the original recipe the way my grandmother and Miss Sheila made it.  (Just click the link).

Tom King

Cottage Cheese Loaf

This is a half recipe - I used a bread loaf pan.

Okay every potluck chef's got one of these published in their church's recipe book. Everybody's version is just a bit different - cottage cheese loaf offers a lot of room for individualization. So I'm picking out the one my Sweet Baboo contributed to the Tyler Adventist Church's "Bountiful Blessings" cookbook.  As I said, this is a high protein vegetarian casserole and works with a variety of ingredients, so experiment with it a little and come up with a recipe that works for you. It's not vegan, so you may have to warn the vegans in your group that there are some eggs and dairy in it. If you use a larger box of Special K, use a larger carton of cottage cheese.

This is a full recipe with a little extra Special K,
cottage cheese and eggs to make a potluck size dish.

This is one of my top three vegetarian dishes.  You already know my number one. This one's probably number two.  Enjoy.....

Ingredients:

1. 1 16-18 oz Box Kellogg's Special K Cereal
2. 1/2 cup pecan meal*
3. 1 large 24-32 oz container of cottage cheese
4. 4 eggs
5. 1/4 cup oil
6. 1/2 stick butter/margarine
7. 1 pkg. Lipton Onion Soup Mix
8. 1 cup water
9. 2-3 tbsp George Washington Golden Broth (Chicken soup base which doesn't have any chicken in it works too)
10. Cooking oil spray

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

   

   Alternative baking method - muffin pans
   Gets nice single servings with crisp edges
   all around like people like - Emily Erasmus
   

    
   

   
   
2. In a mixing bowl, crush the Special K Cereal into a meal-like consistency
3. Melt the butter/margarine in a small skillet, then pour into the mixing bowl.
4. Add all the remaining ingredients and mix well. Walnuts can be substituted for pecans in a pinch and it's quite good.*
5. Once everything is mixed up, spray the inside of a 9 x 12 casserole dish with Pam or a cooking oil spray. I like olive oil spray for this recipe.  I used a loaf pan in the picture below because I made up a half recipe for the Missus and I.
6. Press the mixture evenly into the casserole dish.
7. Place the casserole dish in the hot oven on a middle rack. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes until the top is brown as shown. The loaf should be firm throughout when it cools. Don't be afraid to let the top get good and dark.  
8. To serve, slice the loaf into slices. If you make it in loaf pans, cut it up like thick slices of bread.

Serving Suggestion:

Serve with vegetables, a salad and mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes or potato salad - some nice starch to go with your veggies. Throw in wheat rolls and you have a perfect meal. Take a big old casserole dish of this stuff to potluck and you will certainly take home a nice clean dish. 

Cottage Cheese Loaf, Brussels Sprouts, Mashed Potatoes and Salad

Do not forget to make an extra cottage cheese loaf to leave at home in case you're like me and always let everyone else go first at potluck. Your cottage cheese loaf will likely be gone before you get there, so to avoid being unhappy at potluck, you have to have a spare one back at home. I have to have cottage cheese loaf leftovers, because they make such wonderful sandwiches. If you like meat loaf sandwiches, I promise you're gonna love cottage cheese loaf sandwiches!

Bonny Appetite!
Tom King
(c) 2015


* Pecan and walnut meal can be made by simply pitching some pecans into an ordinary blender. Blend the nuts till it is the consistency of corn meal, although pecan and walnut meal are a little more moist than corn meal.