Rabe and Chick Peas!

I am on a broccoli rabe kick this week and I decided to make mine into a main dish with the splendid addition of chick peas. Seriously, I add chick peas to my dishes like other people add salt to theirs.

I started out by blanching the rabe, which consisted of dunking the rabe into boiling water for 30- 60 seconds and then immersing it in ice cold water for another 30 seconds. Set the rabe aside. Blanching helps the rabe to maintain its vibrant green color. In a large frying pan lightly covered in EVOO, I sauteed garlic, onions, red pepper flakes, and kalamata olives. Once the garlic and onion were well cooked, I added in the rabe and tossed it lightly. The final addition was, of course, a can of chick peas that had been drained and rinsed. Cannellini beans work as well! Salt and pepper as desired.

Can be eaten alone or on a hot steamy bed of brown rice.

"I love you, Rabe!"

Broccoli Rabe sauteed in EVOO with cannellini beans, garlic & lemon zest served over a bed of brown rice. The rice was cooked in vegetable stock with red peppers, onions & portbella mushrooms!

Veggie Brown Rice

In a large (3-5 qt) stock pot sauté in a few a small amount of EVOO until soft:

1/2 a red onion, chopped

1/2 a red bell pepper, chopped

1 cup baby portabella mushrooms, chopped

Add 4 cups of vegetable stock & 1 tsp of salt and bring to a boil.

Add two cups brown rice, stir once and simmer on medium heat until the liquid starts to evaporate and you can begin to see the rice grains sticking out of the water. Lower the heat to the lowest setting and cover the pot. Do not stir the rice again while it is cooking or it will stick. Cook until all the fluid is absorbed, about 10 minutes. Test the rice for doneness. Brown rice can take a bit longer to cook than white rice. If the fluid is all absorbed but the rice is not cooked enough, just add a little more stock to the pan.

Broccoli Rabe with Cannellini Beans

Rinse the rabe and chop off the ends. Coarsely chop rabe and place into large saute pan. Add 1-2 cups water, cover and bring to boil. When water boils and rabe wilts add salt. Lower heat to medium and simmer for exactly 7 minutes. Drain excess water and set aside. Add EVOO to the pan and saute a couple of cloves of garlic until soft. Add in some crushed red pepper flakes, one can of cannellini beans(drained and rinsed), the rabe, salt & pepper. Toss Rabe until coated and served with a little bit of lemon zest on top.

Broccoli rabe is high in the antioxidant vitamins A and C, and also high in Folate, but can be very bitter to the taste. This recipe which is based on one that I found on the Food Network website works very well in limiting that bitterness, but am I throwing all the vitamins down the drain? I just found directions in which the rabe is prepared by blanching it and then shocking it (dunking in salted boiling water for a few seconds, then dipping in ice water) before it is added to the recipe. This method will probably retain more of the nutrients and is worth a try.

For more info on rabe go to the Whole Living website.