bean-grain-mushroom-nut spread:
a freehand recipe
(vegan)

This is a freehand recipe. You can make it in any quantity, with any ratio of ingredients, and it will always be good.

The first time you make this particular freehand recipe, try it at:

3 m | 2 b | 2 g | 1 n

where m is cooked mushrooms, b is cooked beans,
g is cooked whole grain, and n is toasted nuts.

For instance, you could use:

1½ cups of sautéed mushrooms
1 cup of cooked chickpeas
1 cup of cooked whole barley
(a.k.a. hulled barley or barley berries)
½ cup toasted walnuts

Or, for a crowd:

3 cups of steamed chanterelles
2 cups of cooked navy beans
2 cups of cooked quinoa
1 cup toasted almonds

Purée the mixture in a food processor or with an immersion blender. (The purée should be too stiff to make in a countertop blender unless you enjoy trying to get a long scraper down the container to loosen the unpuréed pockets.)

Now taste the mixture for salt, and salt it to your liking.

Think what else, if anything, you'd like to add. Cayenne or black pepper or grated ginger to make it a little spicy? Olive oil or peanut oil to make it unctuous? Dried thyme or fresh parsley to make it herby? Rosemary and garlic, to make it Italialini, cilantro and white onion, to make it Mexicali, sesame oil and soy sauce to make it Chinesque? You're the boss.

After you get the hang of the recipe, you can use whatever proportions you like. One day you could make it:

2 m | 1 b | 2 g | 1 n

And another day:

1 m | 2 b | 1 g | 2 n

Keep notes while you work so that you can reproduce a mixture that comes out especially tasty.

There is one tiny, tiny problem with this recipe.

The spread or dip is likely to be -- well, I'll just come out and say it, the stuff is going to be plug-ugly. It's going to look bad. Bad and brown. Or bad and grey. Bad grey-brown.

The great Colman Andrews tells us in the beginning of his book on Catalan cooking that many Catalan dishes are brown. Get over it! They're brown! Later Saveur, where he was a founding editor, generalized the message. Lots of dishes are brown. They're brown! Get over it!

Some tricks can make a brown (or grey) spread look better. Put something green on top of it, like sprinkles of chopped tarragon or horse-ear-cut scallions. Put it on top of something, like crackers or toast. Put it in a shallow red bowl (never deep, never white, or it will look like dogfood). Put it inside something, like a savory handpie or stuffed zucchini or Alice Waters's polenta torta.

Or you could just get over it.