I feel I should explain how this meal came together.
I like to prep food in bulk over the weekend. I cook up one or two types of beans and I tend to make one big batch of mixed grains. I make a couple of loaves of bread. Why? Because I pack lunch and snacks every day for work and because I’m super-lazy after work. Monday through Friday I have tons of choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner with very little effort. It works for me.
This past weekend I made red kidney beans with fresh jalapeno and some chipotle powder in the pressure cooker. For a grain I combined kamut and whole grain elbow macaroni in the rice cooker. I didn’t work Monday (Columbus Day in the U.S.) so I used my morning to plan out my meals for the week. I kept thinking about those spicy kidney beans–and that kamut-elbows mix. What veggie? What veggie?
I spied the Japanese eggplant in my garden
and picked it. I don’t cook with eggplant much and really wasn’t sure what to do with it. All that came to mind was ratatouille, which I have never made (hell, I don’t even really know what it is). As I thought about how to make a ratatouille I remembered that I had Soyrizo in the refrigerator — which might go beautifully with the red beans that were already nice and spicy with chipotle and jalapeno.
Then I thought about kale. Because I always think about kale.
How about a bed of lime-steamed kale, layered with kamut and elbows, and topped with a spicy soyrizo and eggplant ratatouille?
JL’s Soyrizo, Eggplant & Bean Ratatouille over Kale and Kamut
(You will note that I don’t use measurements for most of this dish. Cook intuitively!)
For the ratatouille
- Water
- Yellow onion, half-moon slices
- Garlic, minced
- Carrots, diced
- Celery, diced
- Sea salt, to taste
- Soyrizo
- Eggplant, diced
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- Spicy red kidney beans (see below)
Heat a large skillet and add water. Saute onion, garlic, carrots and celery (add a little salt to taste) for 5 – 7 minutes. Add Soyrizo (crumble and “brown”). Add eggplant and saute for another minute or so. Add the can of diced tomatoes and spicy red kidney beans and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce to simmer for five minutes.
For the spicy kidney beans
- Avocado oil
- Garlic, minced
- Jalapeno pepper, sliced into rings (keep the seeds in the slices for spice!)
- Chipotle powder
- Red kidney beans, soaked for 1 hour
- Water
- Sea salt, to taste
Saute garlic, jalapeno pepper and chipotle powder in avocado oil. Add kidney beans and enough water to cover the beans. Lock the pressure cooker lid into place and bring to pressure. Cook at pressure for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let pressure release naturally. Remove lid, away from you, and add sea salt to taste.
For the kamut and elbows
- 1.5 cup kamut (dry)
- Half cup whole grain elbow macaroni
- 4 cups of water
- Sea salt, to taste
- 1 t avocado oil
Add all ingredients in rice cooker and cook on brown rice setting.
For the lime-steamed kale
- Water
- Garlic, minced
- Kale, torn into bite size pieces
Add water to a hot skillet. Saute garlic for a few minutes. Add kale, stir and then squeeze fresh lime juice over the kale. Reduce heat to low, cover and let steam for about two minutes.
All together now! Start with kale, add the kamut-elbows and top with ratatouille.
Like what you see? View the entire printer-friendly recipe!
Remember, I didn’t do this all at once. The beans and grains were cooked up on Sunday. The kale took all of four minutes. The ratatouille came together pretty quickly. So don’t look at this recipe and think “complex.” Not at all. It was an intuitive meal that came together based on foods I had already prepared, based on what was in my garden and what was in my refrigerator.
Do you have meals that just came together based on what you had on hand?
