i was craving an old-fashioned chicken & mushroom casserole. the version i grew up with consisted of white rice, cream of mushroom soup, and shredded chicken breast. i decided to make things a little more nutritious and made some changes to the old-school recipe. it turned out better than i hoped! the recipe below is tasty, nutritious, full of vegetables, and an easy one-pot meal. it isn’t particularly beautiful but it’s delicious.

vegetable and brown rice casserole
serves 4

1 cup brown rice
1 cup chopped kale
1 lb. mushrooms, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
1 head cauliflower
1 10.75oz can of condensed cream of mushroom soup*
1 tbsp. fresh thyme
1 tsp. crushed red pepper
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
note: the soup is plenty salty so i don’t add salt until it’s all done

preheat oven to 350 degrees.

heat olive oil in oven-safe pan over medium-high heat.

add onion and cook until softened, 5-6 minutes.

add mushrooms and cauliflower and stir to coat in olive oil. cook for 2-3 minutes until beginning to soften.

add cream of mushroom soup and 3 cups of water and stir until thick soup is evenly thinned out.

add uncooked rice and stir into vegetable mixture.

stir in kale and sprinkle parmesan cheese over top.

cook for about 30 minutes until rice has absorbed liquid and the parmesan over the top has crisped up.

eat and enjoy an updated (vegetarian) version of a classic.

it’s debatable whether breakfast is the most important meal of the day but it’s usually the first. and it’s always nice to start the day with a solid foundation.

however, working 50-60 hours a week and living in nyc means that it’s so easy to grab a bacon egg and cheese from the bodega near my office or to subsist entirely on coffee until lunch time. nevertheless, i’ve been making a real effort over the last few months to have a nutritious, filling, and homemade breakfast most days of the week. and i’ve been succeeding for the most part (sometimes the siren song of donuts is too much to resist).

3 helpful tricks i’ve used to ensure that i don’t have to scramble in the kitchen before leaving for work are:

several days’ worth of breakfasts and flavor each one differently so i’m not bored. some of my favorite flavor combinations are – cinnamon/brown sugar/cashew butter, coconut milk/apricot puree/sliced almonds, and dried cranberries/brown rice syrup/walnuts. a big batch of granola can be eaten with almond milk or stirred in yogurt.

2) make a plan the night before – am i going to make overnight oats? am i going to have a smoothie? are there enough leftovers to piece together a tasty breakfast?