Jena's Zucchini Rice-sagna

Or Lasagna, if you want

We had double birthday party at my eldest daughter Jena’s house recently, and she had made the most delicious plant-based dish. She had planned to make lasagna, and then at the last moment decided to use rice instead of pasta and see what happened. She’s such an amazing cook!

I did my best to duplicate her recipe and it came out fantastic. And with just two of us, we’ll get multiple meals out of it.

So here’s my WFPB version of Jena’s fantastic recipe, which I named, Zucchini-Ricesagna.

Jena’s Zucchini Ricesagna, Mom-Version

Ingredients

• 2 cups water

• 1 cup brown rice

• 2 small zucchini squash, sliced thin

• 1 bunch Swiss chard, or about 2 loose cups chopped

• 1 green bell pepper, diced

• 1 medium yellow onion, diced

• 8 oz mushrooms, chopped

• 5 cloves garlic, minced

• 3 cans diced tomatoes

• 1 can diced tomatoes with mild green chilis

• 1 can black beans

• 1 can tomato paste

• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning blend

• 1 tablespoon reduced sodium tamari

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1 teaspoon onion powder

Method

Cook the rice. Rinse the rice excessively in a sieve. Put it into a pot or rice cooker and add the two cups water. Start rice cooker, or put pot on burner and cook until the rice is tender but not mushy.

Steam the chard. Wash the greens individually, stem the bigger ones, and chop. Place in the top of a steamer pan or double boiler with water in the bottom half. You can also cook it directly in boiling water. Wait until the water is boiling to add the greens, in either case. Cook until tender, taste for consistency.

Slice the zucchini, but do not pre-cook.

Cook the other veggies. Heat a quality skillet until a drop of water dances when dripped on the surface. Then add the diced peppers and onions and mushrooms. Stir constantly, as the liquid begins to cook out of the veggies, add the diced garlic. When the pan gets dry, and the onions begin to stick, and a bit of brown begins to form, deglaze by adding a few tablespoons of water of veggie broth. Stir, stir, stir. To hurry the cooking, pop a lid on the pan for a couple of minutes. Cook until veggies are tender.

Make the Sauce. Pour all the cans of tomatoes and tomato paste and the beans into a large saucepan and stir over medium heat until the paste is thoroughly combined. Add spices, the tamari, the nutritional yeast, and stir, stir, stir. Add the the cooked peppers, onions, mushrooms, and garlic. Simmer, stirring for a few minutes. I did about five minutes. Longer might’ve been better, but how long am I gonna stand there, amiright?

Put it together. I layered each of the above into a rectangular Pyrex baking pan lined in parchment because I did not have a silicone pan the right size. I did two layers, beginning with a little bit of the sauce, then zucchini slices, peppers/mushroooms blend, rice, a layer of greens, then repeat. Sauce, zucchini, other veggies, rice, greens, and finally top it with sauce.

Bake at 400º for 30-45 minutes. To test doneness, stab out a slice of zucchini. when that’s tender, it’s done.

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