summer vegetable rice bowl

serves: 1 & some
time: 30 min

ingredients:
- brown rice (I made one cup and had lots left over)
- 1/3 can drained chickpeas
- 12 pods of peas
- 1/2 yellow bell pepper
- 5 basil leaves
- sunflower sprouts
- black pepper
- coriander
- dill
- sea salt
- olive oil, 1 tbsp
- butter, 1 tsp
- lemon juice

directions:

1. Cook the rice according to directions. I used brown basmati, which takes about 25 minutes to cook.
2. While rice is cooking, slice the zucchini, dice pepper, shell the peas and chop the basil.
3. Using a medium sized frying pan, cook the veggies and chickpeas in 1 tbsp of olive oil. While cooking, add the spices and lemon juice to taste (I recommend at least 2 tbsp of lemon juice).
4. When veggies are cooked, stir in the butter and remove from heat.
5. Mix equal parts vegetable mixture and rice together, garnish with pea sprouts.

TIP: Zucchini can take a long time to cook. I sliced it with a vegetable peeler so that the slices would be even and thin.

Colusari Red Rice

I had never had red rice before, but I really enjoyed this. It turns out that Colusari Red Rice is not only nutty, chewy and delicious: it is high in iron and fibre, and also contains calcium and protein. It is grown in California.
To cook, boil 3 parts water to one part rice. When the water is boiled, add the rice and let simmer on very low heat for about 40 minutes.

Sweet Potato Rice Bowl

Mmm. I was quite happy with how this recipe turned out. I experimented by using tea as cooking liquid to cut down on the oil I needed. I've heard about cooking with tea for a while and wanted to try it out. The tea didn't give quite as much flavour to the vegetables as I would have liked, but overall I was very pleased with the taste of this recipe.

Ingredients:

2/3 c. uncooked Colusari Red Rice

1 med. large sweet potato, cubed

2 small onions, sliced

1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Glaze:

1 clove of garlic

1 tsp rosemary (dried)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp cumin

2 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp raisins (or more, if you'd like)

1/2-3/4 cup black tea (I used assam, any variety would do, the earthier the better)

a drizzle of maple syrup

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 380℉.
2. Cook rice according to directions (approximately 45 minutes).
3. Mix glaze ingredients together.
4. Pour glaze over vegetables and bake for 20-40 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are soft.
5. Lightly toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan.
6. Add veggies to rice, top with hazelnuts and serve.

Note: I imagine this would also turn out well with apples thrown in with the vegetables, or with cider or apple juice used instead of tea to glaze the vegetables.

Serves 2 hungry people.