Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Swiss Chard Leaves Stuffed with Middle Eastern Rice

One of the very first vegan dinners I prepared for myself without the help of a cookbook–and one of the meals I’ve enjoyed most consistently since–was stuffed cabbage. I’d cook bulgur wheat with currants, celery, carrots, cinnamon, and cumin, and I’d stuff it into steamed cabbage leaves. It was always a wonderful meal, and it still is! It’s a standby whenever I have guests over. Lately, I’ve been contemplating how to raw-ify it, or create a sister dish that shares the Middle Eastern spices and general effect, but demands no cooking time. And from that, my Middle Eastern chard rolls were born.

This is one of my favorite raw dinners to date. In place of the bulgur, I use cauliflowers and pine nuts to make a raw “rice,” and it alone is worthy of a blog post! It’s a delicious dish to serve stuffed into wraps, on top of salads, or simply to eat on its own. In this dish, I stuffed the rice into Swiss chard leaves and topped them with my raw marinara sauce. It’s a hearty, comforting, and delicious raw meal–a perfect antidote to the winter doldrums.

Swiss Chard Leaves Stuffed with Middle Eastern Rice (yields 8-12 wraps)

For the “Rice”

4 cups cauliflower
1/2 cup pine nuts
1 tbsp agave, or a sprinkling of stevia
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins or currants

Process all ingredients but the raisings in a food processor fitted with an S blade, till it’s finely diced and resembles rice, like so:

Transfer rice to a bowl, add the raisins, and mix well:

For the Wraps:

8-12 Swiss chard leaves, lightly steamed if desired.

For the Marinara:

1 very large red or yellow bell pepper, deseeded
¾ cup cherry or roma tomatoes
¼ cup sundried tomatoes
1 Tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
Generous sprinkle dried thyme
Generous sprinkle dried oregano
¼ cup basil
Stevia to taste

Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender till thick and smooth.

To assemble the wraps, cut each chard leaf in half and remove the thickest part of the stem. Place 2-3 tbsp rice mixture about one inch from the bottom of the leaf, like so:

Roll the wrap up, and place it on a serving platter with the seam side down. After you’ve plated your wraps, dress them with a few tablespoons of the raw marinara sauce. Dig in!

I served these delicious wraps with some steamed broccoli and beets and a bit of leftover salad from lunchtime:

It was a perfect meal.

The next day, I scooped about a half cup of the “rice” over my lunchtime salad:

It was, again, perfect.

This is the kind of meal I love: creative, but not time intensive; filling, but not dense; savory, but a little bit sweet. It’s a little more innovative than my usual rotation of salads, soups, and grains, but it’s easy to prepare and doesn’t demand extra fancy kitchen equipment. I hope you all give the recipe a try soon, and that you enjoy it as much as I did.

And of course, I hope that your weeks are off to a good start. It’s raining and gloomy here in NYC, but at least it’s not as frigid as it has been recently. Happy Tuesday!

xo

The Savory and the Sweet

Boo!

Happy post-Halloween. I just finished folding up my slutty schoolgirl costume and putting it away for next year. Score!

Yeeeah. Kidding, people. It’s been a while since this girl “dressed up” for October 31st. I did stop by a party last night, but I was dressed up in the very creative guise of a book editor and nutritionist living in New York City. Translation: jeans, flats, and a top. End of story.

In any case, I did take advantage of the weekend to whip up some tasty food. Remember how I promised you an abundance of soups in the week to come? True to my word, I decided to whip up one of my very favorites: raw cauliflower soup.

The last time I shared a raw cauliflower recipe, a bunch of you expressed some trepidation about eating this cruciferous gem in the raw. I assure you, friends, that there’s no reason to be afraid. With its super mild taste and pleasantly crunchy texture, raw cauliflower is a highly palatable treat! The trick is, of course, to prepare it in pleasing ways. Nothing could be more pleasing than this rich and creamy soup, which elevates cauliflower and autumn spices to a new level of perfection. It’s very reminiscent of regular cream of cauliflower soup, but uses healthy pine nuts in place of dairy.

Raw Cream of Cauliflower Soup (serves 2-3)

Ingredients:

½ head (4 heaping cups) chopped cauliflower
½ cup pine nuts
2 tbsp olive oil
4 large dates, soaked and pitted
1 tbsp mellow white miso
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup water
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp celery seed
1/8 cup chopped onion or ¼ tsp onion powder (optional)
¼ tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/8-1/4 tsp pepper (to taste)

Procedure:

Blend all ingredients in a blender or food processor till well combined. Sprinkle with a touch of nutmeg, and enjoy!

Yesterday, I had a kitchen tutorial with one of my local clients. The topic? How to open a young coconut. After a pleasant hour of coconut hacking and food chatter with my client—and faced with the prospect of a few long hours of work—I returned my apartment inspired to whip up a tasty, sweet, coconut-based treat. Fortunately, I had some leftover butternut squash cubes in the fridge that were begging to be used up, and in no time at all, my spooky pumpkin smoothie—a sweet treat in honor of Halloween—was born.

I call this a pumpkin smoothie because I think pumpkin would make it perfect. But any winter squash will do (the butternut was great), and so would yams.

For those of you who have regular blenders, I recommend steaming the pumpkin lightly before you blend. Or, if you’ve got some organic canned pumpkin or squash on hand, feel free to substitute 1/3 cup of it for the cubes!

Gena’s Spooky Pumpkin Smoothie (serves 2)

Ingredients:

Meat of one young coconut
1 cup coconut water
1/3 cup pumpkin, cut into small cubes (raw will work in a VitaMix; steamed in a normal blender; use canned if you’ve got it!)
4 large dates, pitted and soaked for ten minutes or so (you can use stevia, too)
1 tsp cinnamon
Dash (each) nutmeg and cloves

Procedure:

Blend all ingredients on high till the mix is super thick and smooth. You may need to add a touch more water to the mix. It should be on the sweet side, but if it’s not, feel free to add a touch of agave. Far more satisfying than mini-Butterfinger bars, or whatever the kids are eating these days!

I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend and enjoyed the extra hour of sleep. I’d like to take a moment to give all of the amazing folks in the NYC marathon a big shout out – especially the brave and unbeatable Melissa, who’s running right now! Additional props to Katherine, who completed a marathon of her own last week.

And finally?

LET’S GO YANKEES!!!!! (Sorry, Phillie readers )

xo