Stuffed Chard with Cranberry Balsamic Sauce

Well it's smack dab in the middle of spring and leafy greens are in… so in that they are selling them in bunches bigger than a soon-to-be-queen’s wedding bouquet, bigger than will fit on the shelves of even an industrial-sized refrigerator. I was barely able to stuff my local AZ chard in my cute Envirosax bag much less find room for the whole shebang in my crisper. That’s not a bad thing of course; chard is one of my favorite greens, and I knew what I was getting into when I bought it. It just meant that I needed to cook something chalked full of chard right away and plan to cook more chard as part of each and every meal for the next 7 days straight. No biggie. Just some menu planning.

I tend to think in regions when I plan a meal. Do I want Italian, Thai, Indian or Middle Eastern? I love exploring cuisines from around the world in my kitchen just as much as I love trying ethnic restaurants from anywhere on the globe. Lately though, when I am looking for new restaurants to try, I find that most of our options here are restaurants offering “New American” cuisine….huh? I don’t really know what that means. Classier than tuna casserole or putting lipstick on meatloaf? I began to wonder whether or not my ignorance is caused by an ill-defined genre of my unwillingness to branch out from my ethnic comfort zone. How strange does that sound – do I hide inside my bubble of worldly eats? Do I even know how to cook nouveau American in my own kitchen?

All the fixin’s for some smokin’ spring rolls were hanging out in my cupboard waiting to be wrapped in rice paper, but somewhere deep in my cooking subconscious rang these new insecurities regarding the absence of “American” recipes in my repertoire, save for my killer Mac n’ Cheez staple. Spring rolls felt too comfortable and I wanted to venture. After all, it’s can’t be blogged if it’s not a venture. So my big leafy bunch of greens came to mind as a sort of substitute for rice paper. I had also been dying to finish up the last batch of wild rice I got for Christmas. And it hit me? Is this what new American is? Remaking a spectacular ethnic delight but with homegrown ingredients? I don’t know, but these tasted fabulous.

Stuffed Chard with Cranberry Balsamic Sauce

Makes 3-4 servings

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

For the Wild Rice
½ c. Wild rice
3 c. Broth/water mix
1 sprig Thyme
1 sprig Rosemary

For the Marinated Tofu

8 oz. Extra Firm Tofu, drained
¼ c. Dry sherry
1 ½ T. Soy sauce
1 ½ T. Hoisin sauce
6-8 Drop of liquid smoke

For the Sauce
¼ c. Dried cranberries, sweetened
1 c. Water
¼ c. Balsamic vineagar
1 sprig Thyme
½ tsp Salt

For the Chard
1 Large carrot, sliced into 3” matchsticks
4-6 Large leaves of Swiss chard

Directions

Preheat oven to 400˚F.

For the wild rice: bring all rice ingredients to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer rice until tender, 40-45 minutes. Drain and set aside.

For the tofu: Drain and slice tofu into ¼” slices. Pat dry with a paper towel and place tofu in one layer in a glass baking dish. Combine remaining marinade ingredients and pour over tofu. Bake for 20 minutes. Flip slices over and bake an additional 10 minutes or until most of the marinade is absorbed. When cool enough to handle, cut tofu into matchstick slices. Set aside

For the sauce: Bring cranberries and water to a boil. Cook until cranberries have re-hydrated and water has reduced slightly, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and lower heat to medium. Cook until sauce is reduced to ½ cup, 6-8 minutes. Set aside.

For the chard: To blanch the chard, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and using tongs place chard one leaf at a time in water until bright green, about 10 seconds per leaf. Remove from heat and plunge in ice water or run under cold water. Set aside and dab until dry. Do the same with the match stick carrots, cooking for 20 seconds. Drain and set aside.

To assemble: Place one leaf on a large plate. Place 3 T. wild rice, 6-8 slices of tofu, and 4-6 slices of carrots in the center. Fold up leaf by bringing bottom over the stuffing, folding in the sides, and roll the chard from bottom to top. Place on another plate and repeat with remaining leaves. When finished, drizzle cranberry sauce on top of each roll and serve.

Spicy Black Bean Stir Fry

I tend to go crazy at the grocery store when I’m low on produce. Meaning I grab everything that looks ripe, leafy, vibrant, and/or colorful. When I get home and unload, I want to eat everything immediately. In general, I have a hard time focusing on just one item in a dish and leavening behind so many others. It’s as though the sheer variety visually and mentally impairs me from honing in on a single type and I experience a temporary sense of veggie paralysis. You might call this indecision…semantics. The indecision is how recipes like Hodgepodge Pie are concocted in my kitchen.

Sunday lunch was another episode of indecision combined with an intense craving for crunchy vegetables after a hot mid-morning jog. I couldn’t pass up a single thing in my crisper, so it all went in the wok. Ok - I passed on the chard after having just made the rolls, but I threw down most of what I had in this delicious stir-fry. Stir fry is such a simple dish that I almost feel stupid posting a recipe for it. I hate reading stir-fry recipes, because they all sound the same to me. I had forgotten how useful they were when I was just learning to cook. I don’t care who you are, you can make this regardless of your cooking know-how. Pick and choose your own veggies to throw in, add a little soy with a small pinch of sugar and be careful with the chili paste.

Spicy Black Bean Stir Fry

Serves 2
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 tsp. Canola oil

2 Green onions, chopped, white & green parts separated

1 T. Fresh ginger, minced

1 T. Garlic, minced

½ c. Carrots, thinly sliced

½ c. Chinese mushrooms, chopped (shiitake, oyster or other)

¾ c. Zucchini, sliced into ½ moons

¾ c. Cauliflower, chopped

½ c. Yellow corn, fresh or frozen

2 tsp. Tamari or soy sauce

¼ c. Water, divided

1 c. Black beans, cooked or canned

1 c. Black or brown rice, cooked (optional)

1 tsp. Sambal oelek, or chili garlic paste*
1 tsp. Sugar or agave nectar
½ tsp. Soy sauce

*Sambal oelek is a very spicy chili paste. Start with one teaspoon and add more if desired.

Directions

Heat wok on stove over high heat. When pan is hot add oil and lower heat to medium-high. Add white parts of onions, ginger and garlic and fry for 30-45 seconds or until fragrant. Add vegetables, soy sauce and 2 T. water, increasing heat back to high and stirring frequently. Toss vegetables to coat and cook until just tender and liquid has evaporated, about 4 minutes. Remove and set aside.


Add black beans and remaining ingredients to the hot wok along with the other 2 T. of water. Cook until liquid has evaporated, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and pour over vegetables.

Kale Chickpea Stew with Basil Polenta

I’m not sure what sparked my extreme craving for polenta last night, but I pretty much had to have it last night after thinking about it all day. I’ve had so much wheat over the past couple of weeks that I started to develop a sense of negligence and apathy towards other grains. Shame on me. Taking inventory of my grain selection, I had a pretty full stock of polenta, or coarsely ground cornmeal. Something about this fluffy Italian staple just hits me in the right spot when I need something comforting and filling that feels and tastes like a fatty, guilty carb-indulgence though in reality it is very healthy and low in calories. I am allowed to pamper in the occasional illusion of digestively splurging on some creamy, cheesy, off-limits edible luxury by the plateful. On days where I reminisce of eating those comfort foods of yesteryear, polenta is a fabulous outlet.

While I often experiment with polenta preparation – using it as a pie or pizza crust, chilling it and grilling it – I just wanted a classic scoop of golden goop. That doesn’t sound appetizing to you? Well it’s not as gloppy as, say, grits, but it does look similar. Though it’s cooked similarly to grits or oatmeal, its texture is sturdier than your standard gooey grain. As polenta cools, it becomes increasingly sticky until it finally firms up completely. I love that it is firm enough to be cut through easily with a fork but requires only a slight chew without feeling like denture food. It certainly won’t yank any crowns out either, so as Goldilocks would say, it’s juuuuust right. It serves as a perfect base for thick stew-like dishes or lighter stir fried vegetables. In this case I went with a “stewp” of sorts.

I tend to make a lot of dishes that are semi-saucy, not too stewy, but thicker than soupy…if that makes sense. In other words, they are meant to be served over some kind of grain. I typically start with the usually onion-garlic-spices combo, add some liquid, and simmer until the dish has reduced. It ends up being somewhere in between thick and thin but with a lot of flavor. For topping my polenta, I had just purchased a fresh bunch of kale. Some Italian recipes came to mind as kale is also an Italian staple often paired with white cannellini beans or potatoes in soups, crostini toppings or side dishes. I definitely wanted a kale dish here, but beans are a tough sell in my household save for the brawnier varieties like Edamame, fresh fava and garbanzo beans. I was already taking a little texture risk with the polenta this time around so I didn’t want to put too many beans in one pod. I looked up a few recipes for kale and chickpeas together, but decided to just wing it in the end. Classic fresh Italian herbs added bright flavor and an extra punch of both crushed red and black pepper took the whole thing up a huge notch. All I have to say is….holy polenta Batman, this rocked.

Kale and Chickpea Stew with Basil Polenta

Serves 2
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

For the Stew
2 tsp. Olive oil
¾ c. Onion, chopped
2 Garlic cloves, minced
1 T. Tomato paste
1 tsp fresh thyme or ½ tsp dried
½ tsp fresh rosemary, minced or ¼ tsp dried
1/8 tsp Crushed red pepper
½ tsp Salt
1 ½ c. Tomatoes, chopped
½ c. Water or broth
1 c. Chickpeas, cooked or canned
2-3 c. Kale, de-stemmed and chopped
¼ tsp Black pepper or more to taste

For the Polenta
1 c. Water
1 c. Broth, vegetable or mushroom
½ c. Polenta
½ T Basil, dried
½ tsp Garlic powder
½ tsp Onion powder
¼ tsp Salt
3 T Nutritional Yeast

Directions

For the Stew: In a large shallow sauce pan or deep skillet, sauté onions in olive oil over medium heat. Cook until onions start to caramelize and brown, about 7-8 minutes. Add garlic and cook an additional minute. Stir in tomato paste and cook another 30 seconds. Increase heat to medium high and add the next 6 ingredients. Bring to a boil and cook 2-3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low, add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered until liquid has reduced to a thin sauce and kale is tender, about 10 minutes.

For the Polenta: Combine water and broth in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil. Whisk water/broth in a circular motion and slowly pour in polenta. Continue whisking to avoid clumps. Once polenta is boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer. Add basil, onion powder, garlic powder and salt. Cook until polenta is tender and slightly stick to the pan, about 7-8 minutes. Stir in nutritional yeast and season with additional salt if desired.

Spicy Teriyaki Tempeh Stir Fry

Teriyaki….this was an undecided and hesitant vegan exploration of the well-known goopy goodness. Teriyaki seems so basic...because it is. Basic can be ok, but for a chef that tends to get carried away with complex ingredients and grandiose cooking techniques, it is borderline dull. It doesn’t ring bells of Japanese authenticity such as, say, Ohitashi or Bakkake Udon. At its worst it poses as a cop-out during times of indecision or reluctance to venture out at an Asian fast food chain. In its better moments it's a boon for both the inexperienced chef looking with immesnse bottle-opening skills as well as the busy body who aims for something convenient. I see the pros and cons, but it's hard to shake the perception of this sauce as either doing the molasses mamba out of a bottle or slimed all over a fast food order from Samurai Sam’s. What’s so great about Teriyaki?

Everything. Salty, sweet, and hugs food perfectly. Not to mention you can whip it up in about 5 minutes. There are many Teriyaki recipes out there to choose from, though they vary a bit. Regardless of the small nuances here and there between recipes, there are really just two key components essential to the salty-sweet flare of many Asian sauces: soy sauce and sugar. Working at the Indonesian restaurant in Madison, I learned very quickly that sugar is the secret to the deliciousness of most Asian cuisines. And so, soy sauce and sugar are the key players in most versions of Teriyaki. Presumably water is an easy ingredient to come by, so with those three things you're half way there. Garlic, ginger and cornstarch complete the Teriyaki Team and if you don't have those in your kitchen, get them immediately. I chose a simple recipe based on the ingredients at hand and the ease of preparation. With a few tweaks, I was very pleased.

Customizations: For one, I added Sambal Oelek, another Indonesian staple. It takes hardly a teaspoon to break a sweat, so this red chili garlic paste is deceivingly spicy. I used just under a full teaspoon in the whole batch which was perfect. Sweet sauces don’t do much for me, but a mouthful of something sweet and spicy sauce will make my eyes roll in the back of my head. Has anyone seen What About Bob? I hope some of you recall the dinner scene. The second tweak was my sad attempt to make myself feel better about using so much sugar and salt in one sitting. The recipe initially called for brown sugar, but I used turbinado sugar which is raw and unrefined. Its granules are much larger but dissolve all the same. Why not throw in an extra nutritious punch? It made me feel better, especially since I wasn't willing this time around to sacrifice taste to use the low sodium soy sauce. Another way to make this just a smidge healthier is to use less oil when stir-frying and replace with water which deglazes and steams instead. In the end, when you add a thick sauce anyway, it won’t affect the taste at all unless you’ve over-watered your wok (wow, I sure hope those last few words are what people remember me by).

Once again, I’ve used the boil-then-fry method for cooking tempeh with fabulous results. The addition of a handful of sweet, thin green beans and vibrant red bell pepper was perfect. I am very much averse to mushy, overcooked vegetables so I tend to eat them al dente (crisp to the bite) – take care to add the veggies later in the game or they were sog up in no time. When adding the sauce at the end, you won’t need to remove the wok from heat, but you’d be safe turning the burner off so that you don’t overcook the cornstarch. Otherwise you'll end up with gloppy gastro nightmare. I served this over brown rice and decided it’s true what they say – sugar and spice is very nice.

Spicy Teriyaki Tempeh Stir Fry

Serves: 3-4

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

For the Sauce
¼ c. Tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)
1 c. Water
2-3 T. Sugar, brown or turbinado (raw)
1 T. Ginger, freshly grated or minced
1 Large garlic clove, minced
½ - 1 tsp. Sambal Oelek or red chili garlic paste
2 T. Cornstarch
¼ c. Cold water

For the Tempeh
1 Package Tempeh, cut into small strips or cubes
1 ½ c. Water
½ tsp Onion powder
½ tsp Garlic powder
1 T. Soy sauce

For the Stir Fry
1 ½ T. Canola oil
2 Green onions, white and green parts chopped and divided
2 tsp. Ginger, freshly grated or minced
2 c. Green beans, ends trimmed and cut in half
½ Red bell pepper, chopped
½ c. Water (or as needed)

Directions

For the Sauce: Combine the first 6 ingredients in a small sauce pan, adjusting the spice level by using more/less Sambal Oelek. Heat mixture over high heat and boil until sauce has reduced slightly, 4-5 minutes. In a small bowl, mix together cornstarch and cold water. Add to sauce and stir constantly until reaches desired thickness. The sauce should be fairly liquid still, because some will evaporate in the next cooking stage.

For the Tempeh: Combine all tempeh ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Turn heat down slightly and keep at a rolling boil until tempeh has absorbed most of the water. Remove from heat and set aside.

For the Stir Fry: Using a stove-top wok or large skillet, heat canola oil over high heat. Add white part of onions and ginger, cooking until just fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add tempeh to the pan and toss around to coat all sides. If necessary, add ¼ cup of water if pan becomes too dry. Cook until tempeh starts to brown. Add green beans and red pepper to the pan with another ¼ cup of water. Let cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are al dente (crisp and tender, but not mushy), about 2 minutes. Stir in ½ c of the teriyaki sauce and turn burner off. Stir until sauce has thickened and completely coated vegetables and tempeh. Serve over brown rice.