Stir-Fried Brown Rice with Salad Greens

In my ongoing efforts to like salad, I started thinking about other ways I could use salad greens. Everyone always has them raw, but what if I tried cooking them? There are many salad greens that do double-duty as cooked greens and raw greens (spinach, arugula, escarole and radicchio all come to mind) so why stop there? I've heard of wilted lettuce before so I decided to turn my spring salad mix into a stir-fry.

This was honestly one of the easiest and most successful dishes I've ever made. A (mostly) vegetarian friend stopped by last night and, since I can't resist feeding people, he happily stayed for dinner. And he couldn't stop raving about the stir-fry! The vegetarian's only complaint? That I didn't make enough. So, if you're feeding more than two, make extra!

To preserve the "salad" feel of the greens, I stir-fried them in olive oil along with 4 cloves of garlic (to add some heat). Make sure you have everything prepped and your rice cooked and cooled (you can even be lazy and buy already-cooked brown rice) before you start. We enjoyed it with Mixed Green Salad with Pecans, Goat Cheese, and Honey Mustard Vinaigrette, as well as a bottle of Vinho Verde. Bon appetit!

Stir-Fried Brown Rice with Salad Greens
adapted from Food.com
Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups salad greens, packed
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup vinho verde
• 2 ribs celery, diagonally sliced
• 10 cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 3 cups brown rice, cooked and cooled
• 3 green onions, sliced
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce

Heat wok over high heat until smoking. Swirl in olive oil. Add greens and garlic and stir-fry for 2 minutes.

Remove greens and garlic to a bowl. Without cleaning out the wok (or removing it from the heat), add vinho verde, celery and mushrooms. Stir-fry 3 minutes.

Add rice, green onions and greens and garlic. Stir-fry until everything is heated through, breaking up the rice with your spatula if it's clumping together. Drizzle with soy sauce. Serve immediately.

Links to other salad green delicacies:

• Asian Greens Salad from From Scratch Club
• Orange, Walnut, Gorgonzola and Mixed Greens Salad with Grilled Chicken from Pasta Princess & More
• Grilled Bitter Greens Salad with Roasted Beets, Spiced Pecans and Roquefort from The Kitchn
• Roasted Greens Salad with Balsamic Drizzle from Eighty Twenty
• Warm Broccoli and Baby Greens Salad from the rebel grrl kitchen

Pinto Bean Picadillo

The way I see it, there are three ways to cook vegetarian: 1) you ignore that meat ever existed and just come up with your own dishes that only use the ingredients you eat; 2) you find meat recipes and substitute the meat with mock meat; or 3) you find meat recipes and adapt them for your kitchen. Not surprisingly, options one and three are the ones I follow in my kitchen. While I'm sure there are wonderful mock meat products out there, I like my food to taste like itself -- not pretend to be something it isn't. I also have the luxury that, if I'm really dying for some meat, I'll eat it.

But before we get into a political discussion about why people eat vegetarian, let me tell you about this Pinto Bean Picadillo. I first heard about Picadillo last month when the New York Times Dining & Wine Section posted a recipe for Party Picadillo. It was a one-pot dish (and, with the addition of rice, a complete meal). Moreover, they described Picadillo as a "versatile, richly seasoned ground-meat dish from Latin America" and, well, I was hooked. I'd already started making out my grocery list when I realized "wait, if I make this, what will the vegetarian have for dinner?" The ground beef is added too early in the recipe for it to be easy to take out and, moreover, so much of its flavor depends on everything melding together. So I bookmarked the recipe (maybe when we have company for dinner and I make enough sides to satisfy him?) and forgot about it.

Luckily, in search of inspiration, I stumbled on it again. And this time I thought -- let's vegetarianize it! So out went the beef and in went some pinto beans. To reinforce their flavor, I added in some safflower oil and white onions. Finally, because pinto beans are more delicately flavored than ground beef, I upped all the spices. Serve over plain brown rice for a complete protein. Enjoy with a glass of Merlot, followed by a slice of Banana Sour Cream Bread. Bon appetit!

Pinto Bean Picadillo
inspired by The New York Times

• 3 (15-oz.) cans pinto beans, drained
• 1 cup Merlot
• 1/4 cup safflower oil
• 2 white onions, chopped
• 2 green bell peppers, cored and chopped
• 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
• 10 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup Mission olives, pitted and sliced
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon cumin, ground
• 1/2 cup tomato paste
• 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup blanched almonds, sliced
• brown basmati rice, cooked

In a bowl, mix pinto beans and Merlot together well. Let sit so the flavors can meld. Meanwhile, heat oil in a very large pan over low heat. Add onions, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers and garlic and gently saute until softened, about 10 minutes. Stir in olives and raisins, increase heat to medium and add bean and Merlot mixture, including all the liquid that wasn't absorbed. Toss everything together and let cook 10 minutes.

Stir in oregano, cumin, tomato paste, kosher salt and cayenne pepper. Lower heat back to low and cook, covered, 30 minutes. (This is a really good time to make your rice if you haven't already done so).

Top with almonds and serve warm over rice. Serves 6.

Links to other pinto bean delicacies:

• Dad's Pinto Beans from Two Recipes
• Pinto Bean Dip from Crunchy Savings
• Pinto Beans and Yellow Squashes with Green Dressing from Scandi Foodie
• Sticky Baked Lentils & Pinto Beans from Everybody Likes Sandwiches
• Arlie's Pinto Beans from Red, White & Grew