Wheat Berries with Kale, Chickpea and Chard Pesto

Some people see vegan as a limiting diet, overflowing with sacrifices. They pepper me with questions about everything I'm missing out on.

Not that I've limited myself too much. I'm still using all those goodies in my baking, though I've cut down on the quantities quite dramatically, even testing out some vegan desserts here and there.

I just see things a bit differently. It doesn't feel like a sacrifice to me.

Here's how the conversation tends to go:

You're eating vegan? Really? What about butter?

I don't miss butter, really.

But what do you put on your popcorn?

Nutritional yeast, a generous amount, with a dash of olive oil. Delicious. 

Then what about toast?

I've been loving ripe avocado. And drizzled olive oil with za'atar. 

Eggs?

Tofu. Maybe with some nutritional yeast thrown in to give it that traditional flavor. Or tempeh. 

Huh. I could handle giving up eggs, I guess. Maybe even butter. But I could never, NEVER give up cheese. I just love it too much. How do you do it?

I just leave it out. I plan recipes without it. It's amazing how many beautiful recipes there are without cheese. Plus, BONUS, you can taste all the other ingredients so much more clearly. 

And there's this fantastic new pesto I just discovered. It's cheese free.

Really, Katie? Really?

Yes. It's loaded with chickpeas. It's so healthy. It's so tasty. It's perfect. 

Hmm.... I'm curious. Tell me more!

It's one of the best pestos I've had, and it's certainly the healthiest. I loaded it onto wheat berries and filled the bowl with green peas. It's hearty. Each bite is loaded with flavor. You should try it. Really. 

Black Bean and Swiss Chard Mexican Lasagna

Last Sunday, my friend Casey suggested I make baked eggs for dinner. Truth be told, they sounded delicious. A bit of heavy cream, topped with whatever cheese and herbs you have handy. Crack an egg or two over the top, and bake it all in the oven. You get a runny yolk that spills over onto the cheese and herbs.

Yum.

There was just one big problem. Baked eggs don't reheat well.

If I made baked eggs for dinner Sunday, I'd have no lunch option come Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday.

I'd be forced to reheat an Amy's frozen burrito, or wait in line behind twenty children to buy a bagel and cream cheese. And, since it was only Sunday, I knew I'd be facing a whole week of that kind of eating if I didn't prepare something more practical tight away.

This lasagna certainly falls under that category. It's a layered dish, with layers of tortillas, queso fresco, swiss chard and mushrooms, and black beans and corn. Not the first dish most people conjure up when they hear the word lasagna.

Delicious nonetheless.

This dish is hearty and healthy. It comes together quickly (particularly if you cheat a little with store-bought enchilada sauce like I did). I made enough for two lasagnas and threw one right into the freezer before baking it. The perfect solution for the next week when I'm not sure what to make on a Sunday.

Swiss Chard Cannelloni

Every once in a while, I start something and just want to give up. You know that feeling where absolutely nothing is going right. Maybe it's the day when you get home from graduate school, which you went to after work, and all you have the energy to do is microwave the last bit of leftovers from a previous dinner. Then, when you're carrying the hot bowl across the floor because, really, you can't be expected to wait two minutes for it to cool down, you drop it, sending your dinner flying across the floor. And you think, maybe I wasn't meant to eat dinner tonight after all.

That's how I felt with these cannelloni.

It all started with the swiss chard filling. I put my onions on to caramelize in my hot July kitchen, and an hour later, they weren't even close to the color or taste I desired. I sauteed down the swiss chard, which disappeared into almost nothingness in the pan, nowhere near enough to fill pans of cannelloni. Then, I added the mascarpone and parmesan. They seemed like such a good addition as I was measuring them out, but once mixed in, they gave the whole mixture this unusual pinkish color. I threw in an egg to bind the mixture together, and immediately regretted it. The whole mixture looked a little slimy.

I responded by hurriedly pouring the filling into a jar before it had cooled and putting it in the fridge. Then I deleted almost every picture of the swiss chard filling from my camera because I just knew it wasn't going to work. I almost threw the filling in the trash.

But when I woke up the next morning, my pasta maker was calling to me from the top of our kitchen cabinets. It's been so long since you've made homemade pasta, the little voice echoed.

So, forgetting everything that had transpired the day before, I climbed up on a stool and got it down. And, somehow, my luck began to change. The pasta dough came together beautifully. It rolled out in somewhat even sheets that were easy to cut. The cannelloni squares boiled up in less than two minutes and became even easier to work with as they sat and dried a bit. My tomato sauce benefited from the simple addition of onion and butter. And making the cannelloni was much easier than making the shrimp tortellini I had attempted for my first homemade pasta recipe.

I prepared three fillings for the cannelloni, out of necessity, really. My swiss chard filling didn't fill as many cannelloni as I originally intended, so I whipped up a quick tomato, onion and mascarpone filling. When they ran out, I mixed some boiled peas with mascarpone so that I could use up the leftover noodles. By the time I finished, I had three pans of cannelloni: one for dinner that night and two to freeze up for future consumption.

The real test came at dinner that night.

I pulled the cannelloni out of the oven after a 20-minute cook. The sauce bubbled. The parmesan grated on top was browned. I slid the cannelloni out of the pan and onto my plate, being sure to scrape up all the extra sauce. I sliced into the cannelloni with my knife and took my first bite.

Perhaps they weren't such a disaster after all.