Vegetarian Greens, Squash and Rice

Sometimes when you have a refrigerator full of beautiful produce, you forget that you have to defrost a protein occasionally. And when you forget to defrost said protein, you’re forced to make something completely unexpected and sometimes the end result is so good that your family forgets that there was no meat in this dinner.

Dish 1:

1 green acorn squash

Preheat the oven to 350.  Cut squash in half and remove seeds.  Place cut side down on a baking sheet and bake till soft; about an hour.  When it’s done, allow to cool a bit and then scrape out the flesh and mash with a little pat of butter and a little salt and pepper.  (You could add brown sugar and cinnamon, or maple syrup, but I found it to be wonderfully sweet!)

Dish 2:

1 bag of sliced peppers that I prepared and froze when I had too many peppers and they were going to go bad (or whatever you have)
1/2 large onion that I chopped when I had a ton of onion that were going to go bad (or whatever you have)
1 bunch of kale washed and chopped and 2 bunches of escarole washed and chopped(or whatever greens you have)
2 tablespoons of EVOO

Heat a large pan.  Swirl olive oil until ribboned and add onion.  Saute until glossy and then add the peppers, cook until they’re thawed (if they were frozen) and then add the kale.  The kale is tougher and will take longer than the escarole.

I started to add the escarole and realized that I could have used a much bigger pot, but I wasn’t about to switch it now and dirty another pan, so I added what would fit, let it wilt and then created more space for more escarole, cooked till wilted and kept doing that until it was all in the pan and all wilted.

Dish 3:

Jasmati rice cooked according to package directions.

I piled all three dishes onto a plate and drizzled the greens and rice with a little soy sauce.  It was yummy.   My daughter used Texas Pete hot sauce and my son used Chipotle Tabasco.

Everyone thought that their’s was best.