Now introducing… the wintery side dish or vegetarian main dish that you didn’t know you needed! You’ll love how it comes together with one pot on the stove and one pan in the oven.

This festive green and red dish features roasted Brussels sprouts cooked to crisp-tender perfection with fresh cranberries, which become so lovely as they bake on the same pan alongside the sprouts. Add chopped pecans to the pan toward the end of baking to toast them.

Once your components are done cooking, combine them in a bowl over cooked wild rice blend. Finish it off with crumbled goat cheese, plus a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. The flavors remind me of my popular Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cranberries & Pecans, but you can eat this one as a standalone meal. It’s a winner.

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Let’s talk about wild rice. It’s nutty and earthy, irresistibly chewy-tender, and I can’t get enough of it. What is it, exactly? Wild rice is an aquatic grass native to the Great Lakes region of North America.

Don’t save your wild rice for your Thanksgiving stuffing—it’s great year-round, but perhaps especially wonderful during the cooler months. Wild rice offers a warm, hearty component that turns fresh greens into a proper meal, and adds texture and heft to soups.

Wild rice is nutritious, too. It offers about fifty percent more fiber and protein than its cousin brown rice, which puts it on par with quinoa. It’s a suitable gluten-free substitute for farro, since the two are similar in texture.

Wild rice has one less-than-fortunate quality: It’s more expensive than many other whole grains. Wild rice is quite labor-intensive to harvest, which is why it’s pricy. Shop around and store your rice in a cool, dry location. Read on to learn how to cook your wild rice, plus find ideas to use up every bit of it!

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This concept started out as a Thanksgiving stuffing recipe. It took a few twists and turns through the development process.

Here’s what we ended up with:

• Wild rice, tossed in a gingery dressing, plus some kale for extra green stuff and health bonus points
• Roasted butternut squash
• Red pomegranate, green onion, and crumbled goat cheese, which yield a festive color combination
• Pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted with a little cinnamon for warming spice

I’m not sure what to call this situation. Can we call it a stuffing? Or is it a dressing? As a vegetarian, the distinctions are lost on me. Maybe it’s just a salad?

Here’s what I know for certain. This dish is a…

• Christmas-worthy, wildly colored main dish for vegetarians
• Healthy holiday side dish for all
• Special diet-friendly option, since it’s gluten free, nut free and easily dairy free/vegan

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This stunning salad came to be by accident. In a state of impending hanger, I threw together the leftovers scavenged from my fridge: fresh arugula, cooked wild rice, baked sweet potato fries (why not?), and ginger dressing.

I topped it with the leftover toasted nuts and seeds sitting in a bowl by the sink, and somehow summoned the energy to add some crumbled feta.

That salad really hit the spot, so I jotted down some notes about it and here we are.

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Have you tried wild rice in your salads yet? I’m hooked! Wild rice is chewy, nutty, and hearty. It’s high in protein and B vitamins, and adds a strong backbone to healthy green salads.

This salad is wholesome and filling, with plenty of bold arugula and bursts of flavor in the form of toasted almonds, creamy feta, dried tart cherries and fresh basil.

I shared this recipe several years ago, but I’m afraid the photos weren’t doing it justice. This salad should be a strong contender for your Thanksgiving table. It could pull double-duty as a hearty vegetarian option and serve as wild rice stuffing. It’s also a great healthy weekday option as the holidays approach (leftovers pack well for lunch).

If you aren’t quite sold on the concept yet, I have a little story for you. My boyfriend usually claims that arugula is too “peppery” for his liking, and initially declined the salad. Then, he got a look at it and asked for a bite. Then, I heard, “This salad is really nice.” After a few more bites, “Why is this so good? What’s in it?” Finally, “This is so good. Will you make this for me on my birthday?” Victory!!!

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I forgot how much I love wild rice in salads. It’s tender, chewy, with an irresistible nutty flavor. I owe my friend Megan Gilmore a thank you for the reminder.

This salad recipe comes from Megan’s new cookbook, The Fresh & Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook. You might know Megan as The Detoxinista, and the creator of this Mexican quinoa stew recipe that has been such a hit.

Megan’s new cookbook offers 75 easy recipes for fresh and healthy, light meals made in your Instant Pot. If you’re obsessed with Instant Pot cooking, you need this book!

I bought my Instant Pot last year (that’s an affiliate link, and Target is offering a discount right now). So far I’ve discovered that my Instant Pot does a fantastic job of cooking dried beans from scratch in about an hour.

Instant Pots definitely have their pros and cons, and are better suited for some types of recipes (like beans, but not multi-step soup recipes since you have to depressurize the pot to add ingredients or blend them). Instant Pots typically take 5 to 20 minutes to pressurize—only then do they start cooking.

Megan’s new book has opened my eyes to more uses for the Instant Pot. For example, she simultaneously cooks vegetarian red beans while rice cooks on the rack above—woah!

The post Megan’s Wild Rice & Kale Salad appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

Sometime between when I left for San Antonio and now, the grass is green again. It’s like I blinked and the ground came alive. I noticed this while Cookie and I were on a nice long walk after work today. While she tried to chase after every bird and squirrel in sight, steering me around like a bumblebee on a string, I observed the springtime show. Cheery yellow daffodils have popped up to say hello, and ordinarily humble forsythia is putting on a show with its graceful, arching golden branches. Spring is here!

I really love going on walks with Cookie, my tireless companion. Before I had a dog, I zoomed around on my bicycle for exercise, which I still love doing, but everything looks different at a slow pace. I notice things I probably wouldn’t if I were biking, and would definitely miss while driving. I get some of my best ideas while we’re walking, and I composed this post in my head while we were out earlier.

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