Pseudo-stuffed chard

We've recently been enjoying some of the recipes on the Vega website (mostly resulting from Jen's curiosity). While we're not trying to go gluten or dairy free, the vegetarian, nutrient dense recipes have been tasty, and interesting in their uses of new ingredients. Many of which are 'counter-intuitive'.

The grocery store didn't have kale stocked, so we opted for rainbow chard. We chopped up the stems and added them to the filling for texture. Jen also used her Italian heritage to justify the addition of various dried spices to the sauce (oregano, parsley...) and just threw in ~ heaping teaspoon. Jen also omitted the garlic from the filling because she can't handle too much of it.

In the future, we think we'd double the amount of crushed tomatoes in the sauce (our sauce was a bit too chunky to fill in all around the stuffed leaves and they dried out a bit) and also would opt for a layered approach, more like lasagna, instead of the rolls (ours fell apart). We wouldn't change anything about the filling though, it was really delicious.

Original recipe: http://myvega.com/vega-life/recipe-center/kale-cabbage-rolls/

Tomato Sauce Ingredients:

• 1 tsp. coconut oil or olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• Splash of white wine
• 1 (28oz/ 822g) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (15oz / 425g) can crushed tomatoes
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Tomato Sauce Instructions:

1.  Melt oil in a saucepan. Sauté onion until translucent. Add garlic and sauté 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Add a splash of wine and cook until most of the liquid is evaporated. Add both kinds of tomatoes. Simmer 30 minutes.
3. Add salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Set aside.

Filling Ingredients:

• 1 tsp. coconut oil or olive oil
• 1 onion, cut into quarters
• 2 carrots, cut into 4
• 2 celery stalks, cut into 4
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup hemp seeds
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1 tsp chili flakes
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 Bunches Kale, stems removed (for wrapping)

Filling Instructions:

1.     In a food processor, add onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Process to a coarse consistency.
2.     In a large sauté pan, melt oil. Add vegetable mixture. Sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, or until tender.
3.     In the food processor, add hemp, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds. Process to a coarse consistency.
4.     In a large bowl, combine cooked vegetable mixture, seed mixture, brown rice, chili flakes, salt and pepper. Mix. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Assembly Instructions:

1.     Preheat oven to 375 ° F.
2.     Cut all the kale leaves in half lengthwise, and then in half widthwise. You should have a rectangle about 4-inches by 2 or 3 inches. (It does not need to be exact and they do not all need to be the same size.) Keep any kale scraps.
3.     In a rectangle cake pan or casserole dish, pour 1/3 of the tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan.
4.     Take 2 to 3 tablespoons of the filling and line the bottom of each kale rectangle with it. Roll into a kale tube.
5.     Place each roll on the tomato sauce in the pan. Line the whole pan with rolls, making a second layer of rolls if needed.
6.     Chop any kale scraps up into bite size pieces and layer them on top of the kale rolls.
7.     Pour the rest of the tomato sauce on the kale rolls, spreading it around to cover everything.
8.     Bake for 1 hour. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.