Lunches This Week features a recipe hack to my fave casserole: the Spinach and Feta Casserole with Quinoa and Wild Rice. The hack was essentially a happy accident, as I had received some baby spinach and lacinato kale in my Green B.E.A.N. Delivery veggie bin, which I had wilted together - but realized that it wasn't quite enough for the recipe.
So....in the interest of ingenuity, and the fact that I had also received a lovely bunch of fine looking asparagus, I supplemented in order to get to the required 2 cups of veggies for the casserole.
Turned out to be a pretty good hack as it was a great addition, both in texture and in flavor - if I do say so myself. And amuses me greatly that it was a hack of a hack.
I followed the recipe from November to the letter except for the veggies:
- chopped the spinach and lacinato kale into decent sized pieces, threw it into a pan with a few inches of water, popped on a lid and let is steam until completely wilted through. Drained it, let it cool, then squeezed all of the liquid out.
- chopped the stalks of asparagus into bite-sized pieces, created a foil packet with about 1/2 cup of water, sealed the packet, placed it on a tray and put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. I drained the water and tried a piece, which was perfectly steamed.
The spinach and kale mounted to about 1.5 cups, so I supplemented the remaining 1/2 cup needed with the asparagus pieces.
Baked the casserole in a 9" x 9" pan, and it made 7 servings, of which, I threw 1 in the frig and the rest in the freezer.
Oh I do lie a little - I added a nice healthy squirt of sriracha, because everything is better with sriracha!
Since I didn't use all of the asparagus, I plan to make another casserole (since it is incredibly freezer friendly), and use 1/2 spinach or kale and 1/2 asparagus this weekend. I'm curious how it will effect the density and hold-together factor of the casserole.
Jen's Lunches This Week #5
Monday: I had one container of the Marcella Hazan's best pasta sauce ever + polenta, so had that with 1 cup of my homemade Greek yogurt and 1 cup of sliced organic strawberries.
Tuesday: 1 serving of the spinach-kale-asparagus-quinoa-wild rice-feta casserole, 1 cup of homemade Greek yogurt with 1/8 c. of Love Grown Simply Oats Gluten-Free Granola. (We were totally out of fresh fruit, but veggie bin arrived Tuesday afternoon!)
Wednesday: 1 serving of the spinach-kale-asparagus-quinoa-wild rice-feta casserole, 1 cup of homemade Greek yogurt with 1 cup of sliced organic strawberries.
Thursday and Friday: planning same meal as Wednesday, although Friday may be 1 cup of diced organic pear.
I gotta jam and get back to being Event Planner Extraordinaire. Have a fabulous week, peeps!
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