Recipe Night: Red Chard and Quinoa Southwestern “Lasagna”

0 comments recipe night

Jul 19

when we first moved to the bay area, over 4 years ago, i was lucky enough to reconnect (thank you facebook) with an old friend from my hebrew school carpool back in LA.  while many things had changed in our lives over the intermittent years (we’d both been dramatically transported to the east coast in high school, i was married, she’d become a runner!), other things had stayed the same (she still had a biting sense of humor and was up for an adventure).  it was a sad day when she packed her bags, after a year in SF, and moved back to her real home, NYC.

BEX has been visiting for the last few days and while our time together in 2009 was largely spent sampling all the yummy cuisine that our new city had to offer, it’s 2012, we’ve got a kid and we live in a coastal surfing town.  in other words, things have changed, slightly.  but that doesn’t mean we have to stop eating delicious food – and drinking even better wine.

initially i’d planned to make a THIS yummy dish featured over at RABBIT FOOD FOR MY BUNNY TEETH but we had red chard instead of collard greens and i realized, there is a difference.  throw in a few extra special ingredients that we happened to have and it turned into a dish all it’s own.

RECIPE NIGHT: RED CHARD and QUINOA SOUTHWESTERN “LASAGNA”

ingredients:

  • low sodium vegetable stock
  • 1 cup quinoa
  • red chard, 6-8 leaves
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 bell pepper, chopped
  • 1 can of corn
  • 1 can of black beans
  • 1/4 of sharp cheddar cheese
  • 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
  • olive oil
  • southwest or taco seasoning
  • ripe avocado

start off by cooking your quinoa – did you know you can cook quinoa in a rice cooker?  i know, i just made your life a lot better.  you’re welcome.  because it’s now so easy to cook quinoa, i’ve really used it to replace rice and couscous – mean, i still cook rice and couscous but recently there’s been a lot more quinoa in our lives :)

pre heat the oven to 350 – you’re eventually going to throw the whole mess in there – so just make sure it’s ready to roll when appropriate.

saute the onion and pepper in a 1/4 of veggie broth.  note – i also cook my quinoa in equal parts veggie broth and water.  so much more flavor.  when the veggies are tender, mix into cooked quinoa and add rinsed beans and drained corn.

 

add cheese, pine nuts, seasoning and mix.  meanwhile you are going to wash and dry your chard, and then cut off the stems.  we brushed them with a little olive oil and placed a layer of leaves at the bottom of our casserole dish.  next add layer of the quinoa mixture and repeat until your dish is full and the top layer is chard leaves.  again, brush with a bit of oil and place in oven for about 10 minutes – just to make everything toasty warm.

 

let the dish sit for a couple of minutes when it comes out of the oven, before transferring to plates.  top with avocado and lime.  sure, the “lasagna” falls a part completely but it tastes delicious.  the lime juice adds a balance to the spice of the seasoning.  and, it makes great leftovers – enjoy!