Kale-Chard Stalk-Tempeh Saute with Brown Rice Noodles and Baby Ginger and Hemp Seed

A fellow Food for Life instructor posted an interesting recipe for creamed spinach, something I've never made and think I've never had. Essentially, spinach is sauteed with some onion, then part of it is creamed in a blender with some unsweetened almond milk and folded in to the remaining spinach.

I didn't have spinach and, while I could try the recipe with the kale or chard that I did have on hand, I decided to do something else. I started with:

• Head of kale, washed, with leaves hand torn off of stems to about 1" pieces (stems composted)
• Stalks from a head of chard, cut into 1/2" lengths
• Six fingerling potatoes, cut into thin sixths
• A medium shallot and a garlic clove, each thinly sliced
• A third of a packet of tempeh, sliced into thin rectangles maybe 3/4" x 1/2" (x 1/4" thick)

I put the shallot, garlic, and potato in a saute pan with a little bit of canola oil. I let it cook over medium heat for two or three minutes till the onion became clear, then I added the tempeh. After another five minutes or so, with the potato getting close to being cooked but not yet browned, I added the chard stalks. I cooked another two minutes or so, then added the kale and sprinkled some salt on top to help the kale cook down.

After two more minutes or so, the kale was becoming darker green and the potato was showing a little bit of browning. I then sprinkled on a little bit of coconut aminos and served. It tasted surprisingly good, even without coconut milk that I was originally thinking of also adding. I served this with some brown rice noodles that I had sprinkled hemp nuts and herbed salt atop, as well as corn-off-the-cob. My toddler, wife, and I all enjoyed dinner!

Yesterday, the Thanksgiving that I host annually (which has become the largest vegetarian Thanksgiving in the country) went great. The event webpage has the menu; I have sent my summary in to our webmaster, and soon that will appear. Here is an excerpt:

Altogether, it was again very well received, and we beat our old record from last year, having 685 people in our extended Thanksgiving seating (we had 673 in 2011). We believe that we were again the country's largest vegetarian Thanksgiving. In total, adding in the 291 attendees at Washington Duke Inn, we served 976 people (876 last year).

North Carolina National Public Radio ran at least two stories, one on Thanksgiving Eve, and a shorter one on Thanksgiving Day. NBC covered the Washington Duke event, and ABC  the Parizade one. There were also several newspaper references in the weeks leading up to the events.