Chicken Chard and Rice Casserole

So if you read yesterday, you know that we are doing some veggie clean-up in the fridge this week. We had a nice bunch of rainbow chard in the fridge, and if you have ever bought chard you know that it goes limp faster than, well, you get the idea. The chard needed to be eaten, like, yesterday. So I monkeyed with another Moosewood recipe. Turned out pretty good and very filling.

Chicken Chard and Rice Casserole

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 T. oil
1/4 c. chicken broth (or water)

2 c. uncooked brown rice
1 T. butter
1 onion, minced
1 bunch of chard, stems removed and chopped (you can sub spinach or any other green)
salt and pepper
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cayenne
2 T. Dijon mustard
3 beaten eggs
1 1/4 c. milk
1 1/2 c. grated cheddar or swiss

Put the rice in a rice cooker with 3 c. of water and turn to cook (start this right away!).

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat a medium cast iron skillet over medium high with 2 T. of oil in it (I used canola). When it's hot, place the chicken in and salt and pepper. Brown for a few minutes then flip. Give the second side another couple minutes, then add the broth and cover, turn to medium. Cook covered for about 10 minutes, until middle runs clear. Remove chicken to a cutting board to rest and cool.

Chop your onion, then turn a large pan on medium and add the butter (if you are anti-butter you can sub oil but please don't let me know of this crazy perversion). Saute the onions until translucent and maybe just starting to brown on the edge.

While the onions cook, de-stem and chop up the greens and mince the garlic. When the onions are clear, add the garlic, greens, and salt and pepper. Stir frequently and cook about 5 minutes, remove from heat.

Pam a 13x9 pan. Chop or shred the chicken (it should be well rested by now, must be nice). Add the rice and the greens mixture. In a bowl, beat the eggs and then mix in the mustard, spices, milk, and cheese. Add this to the pan and stir everything until well incorporated. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the sauce is set.

Nacho-topped Beans and Rice

So I think I've mentioned, maybe once or twice, that we have been subscribing as of late to the Full Circle box organic produce program. The boxes are delivered to our pickup spot on Thursday afternoons, which means my husband has the chore of picking up the box and getting the contents to the fridge. Which he is very good at.

Where our skills are lacking, however, is in communication. I usually do the meal planning, and he usually forgets what came in the box that week. So Monday I opened the fridge to see what's left of the prior week's box and found tons and tons of goodies I didn't know were there. 

So this week became a sort of fridge clean-out week. The key, I believe, to not wasting food, is to have a decent selection of cookbooks on hand, or a working knowledge of where to find recipes on-line. Since we were dealing with veggies, my go-to vegetarian cookbook is the New Moosewood Cookbook. Mollie Katzen has written and entire library of veggie-based cookbooks and I really encourage you to check them out, if you haven't already (our local library has a huge selection of her titles). She makes healthy, veggie-laden food taste like, well, delicious comfort food. And with her help, you can do it, too.


This recipe, served over canned refried beans and steamed rice (if you have leftover pinto beans, even better), is pretty easy and the taste is very deceptive--I am not a bell pepper fan and I seriously destroyed a plate of this. The sauce tastes a bit like the old Rotel-Velveeta dip, but the flavor is much more complex. If you want some meat in the dish, I think a half pound of browned ground beef would be pretty tasty mixed in as well. You could also use the nacho topping as a dip for a Super Bowl party. Like I kind of mentioned earlier, it's adapted from a Moosewood recipe.

Nacho-topped Beans and Rice

Ingredients:
2 T. olive oil
1 small-medium onion, diced
salt and pepper
1 t. cumin
1/2 t. coriander
1/4 t. cayenne
2 large bell peppers, diced (I used one red and one green)
3 medium tomatoes, chopped (you can sub a can of diced tomatoes too)
2 T. flour
8 oz beer (I used a Corona but you can use whatever you have on hand, and flat beer is fine, too)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. sugar
2 c. grated cheddar

steamed rice
2 cans refried beans (I like to mix about 1/2 c. of salsa with the beans), warmed

crushed tortilla chips for garnish*

Heat the oil on medium in a large pan. Add the onions and sprinkle with salt. Saute until the onion is translucent. While it cooks, chop your peppers and tomatoes. When the onions are translucent, add the peppers and tomatoes, along with the cumin, coriander, cayenne, and some fresh ground black pepper. Cover and cook over medium for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Start the rice in the rice cooker. Open the beans and put them on the stove over low (or in a microwave-safe bowl), and mix in the salsa if you are using it.

When your peppers are soft, whisk in the flour, dissolving all lumps. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds. Whisk in the beer, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 5 minutes. Taste the mixture, add salt if necessary. Add the sugar. Whisk in the cheese and stir until it's melted and incorporated. Serve hot over rice and beans. Garnish with some crushed tortilla chips if desired.

*optional

Swiss Chard Tart

Don't be scared by the name. This is good (I promise). It's also a painless way to use lots of greens, and even maybe get your kid to eat them, too. I adapted it from a recipe from a friend, who I believe got it from The Joy of Cooking. If you got a Full Circle box last week, that chard isn't getting any fresher. You can substitute any greens for the chard.

Swiss Chard Tart

Ingredients:
Crust:
1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. olive oil

Guts:
2 T. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 pound (1 bunch) swiss chard, most of bottom stem removed, chopped (give it a good wash, it's usually dirty)
1 1/2 t. dried basil
1/4 t. salt
fresh ground pepper to taste
3 eggs
1/3 c. milk
1/2 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese

Mix the flour and salt in a medium bowl. Add the oil and water and thoroughly combine. Press the dough into a square baking dish or tart pan and put in the fridge for at least an hour.

When you are ready to start cooking, preheat oven to 375. In a large skillet, cook the onion and garlic in the 2 T. of oil, over medium-low, until the onion is translucent. Add the chard and cook until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Stir fairly frequently.

Remove from heat. Add the salt, pepper, and basil.

In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and cheese. Stir in the veggie mixture from the pan. Pour the mixture over the crust and bake until golden brown on the edges and firm, about 40-45 minutes. Cool. Serve.

Here's what your crust dough should look like when it's ready to be pressed into the pan.

Hot out of the oven!

Ready to eat

Potato Soup--It's CHUNKY!

OK, this isn't just potato soup. It's not just potato leek soup. It's a mish-mash of potato leek and the yummy Zuppa Toscana from the Olive Garden. Yes, I will admit that I, too, am pretty excited that we are getting our first Olive Garden here in my town, mostly because of the soup-salad-breadstick lunch with the Zuppa Toscana soup. I came up with the idea when our CSA box from Full Circle this week had a leek and kale in it. So try it, let me know how it goes. I found it very tasty, pretty easy, and VERY filling.

CHUNKY Potato Leek Soup

Ingredients:
1 leek, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/4 stick butter
1 pound ground pork (I use this instead of sausage because it lacks those naughty nitrates/nitrites)
24 oz. chicken stock or broth
5 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
8-10 oz half and half
1 packed c. chopped kale (optional)
salt and pepper

In a big soup pot or dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat. When it's melted, add the leek and onion and cook, stirring frequently, until the veggies are a little brown on the edges. Salt and pepper them.

While they are cooking, brown the ground pork (or ground sausage if you prefer) with salt and pepper (and any other seasonings you like--since I use ground pork, I also add garlic powder, dried sage, and a little cayenne) in a fry pan.

When the veggies are done (see picture below), deglaze the pan with the stock. Add the potatoes and a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and cover. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, until potatoes are soft. At this point, if you like a chunkier soup (CHUNKY!), you can mash by hand with a potato masher or whatever floats your boat. If you want something very smooth, run it through your food processor or use a stick/immersion blender. I did it chunky. Add the sausage, stir, then add the half and half. I would add the half-and-half until you reach a consistency that  you like. Add the chopped kale. Heat the mixture through, until the kale begins to wilt, then serve.

We served this with a nice, crusty loaf of sourdough bread. It was pretty darned good. But I'm still going to Olive Garden when they open.

Here are the browned bits from the cooked veggies that you will work off by adding chicken stock. YUM. If you use a non-stick pot, you will not get all of this color.

Here's the final product. The kale this week was a purple variety, hence the dark specks (I promise, I didn't burn it!).

The Meal Plan

So in the fall-winter-spring months, when things finally start to slow down a bit around here (snow and never-ending darkness will do that), I like to do a weekly meal plan (versus bi-weekly or monthly like some do). I do this for a few reasons.

First, it's how I first learned to do meal planning, from a great little book called Saving Dinner. Being a creature of habit, I figure why fix it if it's not broken, right? Second, I like to do it after the Sunday ad circular comes out for my favorite grocery store. That way I can tailor the meals I want to cook to the produce that's on sale that week. And third, sometimes I subscribe to a Community Shared Agriculture program here locally, and sometimes to a similar box program out of Washington called Full Circle, where you get a box of veggies and fruits based on what's in season right then. So when I am subscribing, I wait until I find out what produce I'm getting and base meals off of that.

When I meal plan, I just do dinners. I cook big and we eat leftovers for lunches. I also plan for the nights I know will inevitably be either an eating out night or a "fend for yourself/leftover" night and only plan for 4-5 meals. I do this because I know the laziness of my family, and I also know that our crazy schedule doesn't always allow us to eat together, as there are 1-2 nights per week that I work late.

Finally, I post the master meal plan on our fridge after I finish shopping for any groceries we need (I find that limiting grocery shopping to once a week seems to help with impulse buys). I have some nifty little pads that I bought similar to this at Michaels that have a magnetic back and keep track of everything. Next to each menu, I annotate where to find the recipe (for instance, SD p.23 would mean the recipe is in Saving Dinner on page 23) so that my husband or I can find the recipe and not have to guess if the other isn't there to ask. And yes, I have a husband that cooks. I'm very lucky. I know some people use tools like Allrecipes.com which will do a grocery list for you, and there are lots of apps out now for your smart phone or tablet that will do this too. But for now, I'm old school and enjoy flipping through my hard copy cookbooks.

So what do you do, meal planning-wise? Do you like to fly by the seat of your pants? Plan out every breakfast/lunch/dinner for 30 days in advance? Or some happy medium? And do you plan for leftovers, or do you have a house of people that won't eat them?