Jade Pearl Rice with Red Kale and Tempeh

I rarely cook with short-grained "sticky" rices, but yesterday at Whole Foods Market, I bought some "Jade Pearl" rice, a rice infused with bamboo that cooks in a 1 to 1 1/2 ratio rice to water in 20 minutes. My wife and daughter are back (yay!), and I thought tonight of making a dish with this rice.

My vision was to use this tiny rice and cook it with finely chopped bell pepper, onion, and tempeh, and have a pilaf-like dish. I followed this basic intuition of mine, using kale (we don't have bell pepper in stock at the moment), and came up with something that was creamy and risotto-like, not what I was expecting, but even better! (I didn't notice till I started writing this that on the rice's webpage description is mentioned a possible preparation as an "Asian style risotto".) Here is what I did:

1. I put rice and water into a stainless steel pan in a ratio of one part rice to one and a half part water. I think that I used about 2/3 cup rice and 1 cup water; the quantity was about right for two medium or large servings (I thought there might be some leftover, but it was too good to leave any!). I had intended to include a vegan bouillon cube but forgot - I added that part way into the cooking when I remembered. I brought the mixture to a boil.
2. I took three leaves of red kale and hand stripped about 1 1/2" squares of leaf from the stems. I added the kale to the pan.
3. I also added one garlic clove, finely chopped, and about 4 ounces of tempeh, cut into 3/8" cubes.
4. I covered the pan and reduced heat to low; I let the rice-vegetable mixture simmer for about 20 minutes, and served.

It was surprisingly creamy and tasty! I served with some avocado and tomato, as well as some peas.