Rice and vegetables

Having leftover rice in the fridge is like having dinner almost ready.

The other night, I sautéed some onion, green pepper and zucchini. Then I stirred in leftover cooked rice and some frozen peas.

It make a pretty main course that I served with some steamed vegetables for a good dinner.

Fast food is a working person's friend.

Butternut Squash Risotto

We harvested our two ripe honeynut squash yesterday, and turned them into this delicious risotto for dinner.

I don't think I've ever eaten such fresh winter squash — 3 hours from garden to table — and they were sweet and yummy.

In the past I've made this risotto with older butternut squash and it was great too.

Of course, it is hard to go wrong with risotto, especially if you use excellent vegetable stock.

Butternut Squash Risotto

1/2 cup finely diced onion

3/4 lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped in 1/2" pieces (about 1 3/4 cups)

1/2 tbsp butter

1/2 tbsp olive oil

1 cups arborio rice

1/4 cup white wine

3-4 cups vegetable stock

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground white pepper
few grinds black pepper

1/4 cup parmesan

Melt the butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the diced onion and squash. Cook over medium heat until the onions are translucent.

Bring the stock to a boil and keep it warm over low heat in a covered saucepan.

Add the arborio rice to the onions and squash and let it toast slightly, stirring a few times, about 3-5 minutes. Stir in the salt and white pepper.

Add the white wine. Stir a few times until it is evaporated. Add a ladleful of stock. Stir. Let the stock absorb into the rice, then add more stock. Keep adding stock, stirring, and letting it simmer until it's absorbed by the rice. Then add more.

When the rice is tender, add a few grinds of black pepper and the parmesan, and serve.

Serves 2-3

Heirloom Tomato Risotto

The risotto is almost cooked.

With this excessive heat, the leaves on our tomato plants are turning brown and crumbling, the eggplants are wilting and the zucchini have stopped flowering. I head out in the evening to spray water on their leaves, but it evaporates almost as soon as it lands.

Last night I picked all our remaining tomatoes — ripe and almost ripe — and made this risotto. It's one of our favorites, and I only make it in late summer when the tomatoes are rich and lush. I add some less ripe ones to get a little acid in the mix. It's truly scrumptious.

Usually I peel the tomatoes, which is easy — see how I do it here. But I'd just gone outside in 100° temperatures to pick the tomatoes. I had no desire to stand over a pot of boiling water. So we had barely noticeable little rolled up pieces of tomato peel in our risotto.

Of course, as with all risottos, an excellent stock is necessary. My favorite is one I make in the slow cooker — first roasting the vegetables to create a wonderful deep flavor. You can find my recipe for it here. I always have a few cups stashed in the freezer. It's so deeply concentrated that I use half stock and half water in risotto, and an even smaller proportion of stock in soup.

Heirloom Tomato Risotto
1 lb 8 oz heirloom tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil, divided use
1/2 tbsp butter
1/2 onion, chopped
3 - 4 cups stock (or combination of water and stock)
1 1/4 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tbsp chopped basil
1/4 cup parmesan

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil and 1/2 tbsp butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and a dash of salt and cook until the onion starts to turn golden, 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a separate saucepan, bring the stock to a gentle simmer.

Add the rice to the onion, stirring until each grain is coated with oil. Pour in the wine, stir, and let simmer until the wine is absorbed. Then start adding stock, 1/2 cup at a time, letting it absorb before adding more. Stir a little, but not constantly.

Meanwhile, peel the tomatoes if desired. Then core and chop them into 1 1/2 inch chunks, saving the juice. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a small skillet. Cook the garlic a minute until fragrant, then add the tomatoes and their juice along with some salt. Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring only a couple of times. Set aside until you're ready to use it.

About 15 minutes after adding the rice to the skillet, pour in the cooked tomatoes and their juices. Stir and let cook until the rice is tender and the risotto is moist and loose.

Remove from the heat and stir in the basil and parmesan.

Serve with extra parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

Serves 2-3

Coconut Rice

I love our rice cooker in the summer. It doesn't heat up the kitchen, and I can load it up and then go putter in the garden while it cooks dinner. It turns itself to warm when the rice is cooked.

The other day I used it to cook basmati rice in coconut milk with a little curry powder. The rice turned a beautiful yellow color. I served it with curried tofu and corn on the cob for a yummy and colorful meal.

Fortunately, we had leftover rice. A couple of days later I used it in simple stir-fried rice. I sautéed onions, garlic and chopped peppers in our wok. I stirred in the cooked rice and some homegrown green beans cut in 1-inch lengths. Then I added a splash of hot water, put the lid on and let it steam — checking and stirring occasionally — until the rice was hot and the beans tender-crisp.

It was a simple one-bowl dinner. I love leftovers.

Here's the recipe for the coconut rice that was the base of the stir-fry. It's really good the first time around too.

Coconut Rice
2 cups long-grain white rice (I used organic texmati)
1 can coconut milk plus enough water to make 2 1/4 cups liquid
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp salt

Combine all the ingredients in the rice cooker and stir well. Cook until the rice cooker tells you it's done, about 20-30 minutes.

Serves 4

Risotto with Kale

Arborio rice, white wine, rich vegetable stock — risotto is a simple supper that requires good ingredients and a little patience. Served with a crisp salad, it's a lovely meal to linger over on these long summer evenings.

The other night I added shredded lacinato kale to the risotto. It added a slight kale flavor and lovely deep flecks of green.

It's hard to make risotto for 2 people. I always make extra and serve the leftovers the next day as risotto patties (squashed together like burgers — with a beaten egg if the rice falls apart too much— covered in bread crumbs, and fried in a little olive oil).

The key, of course, is a good stock. I recommend making your own. I have a couple of recipes on this blog. You can find them here and here.

Risotto with Kale
3 1/2 cups vegetable stock — I used 1 1/2 cups of my best roasted vegetable stock and 2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1 bunch lacinato kale (also called dinosaur or Tuscan kale or cavolo nero)
1 1/4 cups chopped onion
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp unsalted butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Bring the stock and 3 1/2 cups water to a boil in a large pot. (This will be a total of 7 cups of liquid.) Add a sprinkle of salt. Cut the thick stems from the kale and throw the leaves into the boiling stock. Simmer it until tender, about 5 minutes. Lift out the kale, squeeze it well, and let it cool. Chop it coarsely.

Keep the pot of stock simmering gently, covered.

Cook the onion in the olive oil and 1 tbsp butter over low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Raise heat to moderate and add the garlic. Cook, stirring, one minute. Then add the rice and cook, stirring, until all the grains are coated with the oil.

Stir in the wine and let the risotto simmer a couple of minutes while the rice absorbs the wine. Then start adding the simmering stock, stirring in about 1/2 cup at a time, letting the rice simmer gently as it absorbs the liquid. Don't stir so much the grains of rice become pasty. Let it simmer and keep an eye on it, stirring in more liquid as needed. You might not use all the stock. The rice should be creamy-looking but still al dente. This will take under 20 minutes.

Stir in the kale, parmesan, and remaining tablespoon of butter. Let it all heat through, then season with salt and lots of pepper. Add more broth if necessary to thin it.

Serve in heated shallow bowls.

Serves 4

Treasures from the Freezer

When we have leftover cooked rice, I stash it in the freezer for when I want to serve a simple casserole for dinner.

Also in the freezer are roasted poblanos, organic corn, and bags of diced zucchini from last summer's over-enthusiastic vegetable garden. This year's zucchini plants are starting to flower, so the pressure is on.

Fortunately, all these ingredients combined into a fabulous casserole. Some aged cheddar on top added the finishing deliciousness.

I combined leftover white take-out rice and leftover brown rice, just because those were the first two containers I found. Freshly cooked rice would be great too, of course.

I used 4 poblanos for a very spicy casserole. You can cut back the heat by using fewer poblanos if you like. Also, you could use fresh poblanos and skip the roasting, just dicing and adding to the skillet. But the roasting does add a yumminess. (See how I do it here.)

Poblano and Zucchini Rice Casserole
1 tbsp oil
1 cup corn, defrosted
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3-4 poblanos, roasted and peeled and diced
3 cups diced zucchini (from 4 medium zucchini)
4 cups cooked rice
aged cheddar

Warm the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté the corn for a few minutes until it starts to brown, stirring regularly so it doesn't burn. Add the onions, garlic and poblanos. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft. Add the zucchini and season with salt and pepper. Cook over low heat until the zucchini is tender.

Stir into the cooked rice. Pour into a large casserole dish and top with a few slices of cheese.

Bake at 350°F 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and everything has melded well.

Serves 6

A simple rice cooker meal

There's something cool about appliances doing all the work. I don't mean actually choosing my options - that's my job. But I do enjoy leaving dinner to cook without worrying about it burning or boiling over. It lets me go putter in the garden, knowing that when I'm ready for dinner, it will be ready for me.

The other night I made this great spicy mushroom rice dish in my rice cooker. I have a very low-tech rice cooker - turn it on and let it do its work. No fuzzy logic. No bells and whistles. And it works great. When the rice is done, the cooker turns to low and keeps it warm until I remember it's time for dinner. A simple salad or a steamed vegetable can round out the meal.

I sautéed leeks and mushrooms, added chipotles in adobo, then stirred in raw rice. I poured the whole thing into the rice cooker. When I have some smoked jack in the fridge, I stir in about half a cup diced at the end to add a "bacon-y" flavor. But the chipotles add enough flavor that it's not necessary. (Chipotles in adobo are dried smoked jalapeños in a spicy tomato sauce. You'll find them in cans in the international section of the grocery store. I use what I need then store the rest in a jar in the refrigerator where they'll last for a few months.)

Spicy Mushroom Rice
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
4 small leeks
2 chipotles in adobo, chopped
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
8 oz crimini mushrooms, sliced
6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 cup brown rice
2 1/2 cups water

Warm the butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Cut the roots off the leaks, then cut them in half lengthwise. Wash them well to get dirt out from between the layers. Thinly slice the white and pale green parts and add them to the warmed oil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Raise the heat to medium and add the chopped chipotles, sliced mushrooms and chopped garlic. Cook until mushrooms darken and are tender, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the salt, pepper and brown rice. Pour into the rice cooker. Add the water. Lower the lid and turn on the cooker.

Serves 4-6.

This reheats well. It also freezes and defrosts well. It's a great go-to easy dinner dish.

Risotto with Broccoli

We have been buying beautiful bunches of thin-stemmed broccoli from the South Central Farmers Cooperative at the Hollywood Farmers Market.

They have long slender stems, a few young leaves and small florets. I've steamed them and served them with lemon juice, tossed them with brown rice and lots of pepper, and the other night I served them on top of a simple risotto.

Broccoli is a wonderfully versatile green, and it helps keeps our estrogen levels balanced, so it's good to eat regularly.

This dish most decidedly does not taste like health food.

Risotto with Broccoli
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup arborio rice
3 cups vegetable stock and water
1/4 lb young broccoli
1 tsp olive oil
2 oz parmesan shavings
1/2 tsp cracked black peppercorns

Bring the stock and water to a gentle simmer in a covered pot. Keep warm on a low burner.

Warm 4 tbsp butter in heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic until soft, about 4 minutes. Stir in the rice until the grains are coated with butter.

Add a cup of stock and stir. Let simmer, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is mostly absorbed. Repeat with another cup, and then the last of the stock, cooking about 25 minutes until the rice is tender but still has a little bite.

In the meantime, cut the broccoli in 2 inch pieces and blanch in boiling salted water for 2 minutes. Drain and toss in olive oil and a little salt and pepper.

Cut up the remaining butter and stir into the rice to make it creamy,

Spoon risotto onto 2 plates, top with the broccoli. Use a potato peeler to shave some parmesan over the top of each, then add a few grindings of coarse pepper. Serve immediately.

Serves 2-3

Rice Salad with Eggs and Green Beans

It's been too hot to cook, so I've been relying on salads at dinner time.

This one, with eggs and rice and corn, was a truly complete meal. We ate almost all of it in one sitting, and I took the leftovers for lunch the next day. That is the sign of a good salad.

A note about the rice: Usually I make this salad with brown rice, but I had spent the early evening puttering in the garden so to get this salad on the table in a timely manner, I used white jasmati rice – an organic rice from Texas that my local independent grocery store carries. It has a great flavor, and I had dinner on the table in under 45 minutes.

Rice Salad with Eggs and Green Beans
1 red pepper
1/2 cup onion, sliced in rings
2 cups cooked rice
4 oz (large handful) green beans
1/2 cup corn (frozen is fine)
2 eggs
1 small avocado
butter lettuce
1 tbsp capers
6 olives, sliced

Dressing:
1  clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp yogurt
1/2 tsp dijon

Cut the red pepper in half. Remove the seeds and membranes. Place cut-side down in a small roasting pan. Add the onion rings. Sprinkle the onion with a little olive oil, then cook them under a broiler for 5-6 minutes until the pepper starts to blacken. Stir the onion a couple of times so it turns golden, not black. Put the pepper halves in a pot and let them steam gently. Cut the onion rings up and stir them into the rice. Put the rice on a large platter.

When the peppers are cool enough to touch, scrape off the skin (as much as you can) and cut them into thin strips.

Pierce the eggs with a pin and put them in a pan of boiling, salted water for 10 minutes. Drain and refresh in ice water. When cool enough to touch, peel off the shells and cut the eggs in quarters.

Cook the green beans in a little boiling water for 2 minutes, then add the corn and cook another 2 minutes. Drain and put in a bowl with the red pepper strips.

Stir together the washed and torn lettuce leaves with the peeled and diced avocado. Pile them on the rice.

Whisk together the dressing ingredients. Put about half into the bowl with the green beans and toss gently. Pile this on top of the salad.

Decorate the platter with the eggs, olives and capers.

Serve the extra dressing on the side.

Serves 3-4

Greens and Rice

There is nothing better than looking in the fridge and seeing a container of cooked brown rice. Stirred up with some greens, it makes an easy dish for dinner.

The other day I cooked up a bunch of purple mustard greens along with the greens from a bunch of red radishes, then stirred in some cooked brown rice to dampen the heat a little.

It's a simple technique that can work for any cooked grain and any greens you have in your fridge.

Greens and Rice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, diced
1 clove garlic
1 bunch purple mustard greens
greens from 1 bunch red radishes
2 cups cooked brown rice

Warm the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté the onion and garlic until tender, about 3 minutes.

Wash the greens and cut into one-inch strips. Add to the pan, sprinkle on some salt, stir well and cover the pan. Let cook 5-10 minutes until the greens are soft and tender. (The time will depend on the type of green you are using.) Stir in the brown rice, cover and cook until the rice is hot and the flavors are blended.

Season with salt and pepper, lemon juice or hot sauce to taste.

Serves 2-3

Rice and Poblano Casserole

Poblanos and rice - one of the best combinations ever. When I have leftover rice, I always throw it in the freezer to be able to make a simple casserole like this.

Unfortunately, we had eaten all the freezer rice, so I had to cook rice from scratch. That's okay. This casserole was worth it.

Rice and Poblano Casserole
2 poblano peppers
1 tbsp oil
1/4 cup diced onion plus 2 tbsp onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (opt)
5 oz cheddar, grated
3/4 cup frozen corn, defrosted

Toast the poblanos over a gas burner or under the broiler until their skins are charred and blackened. Put in a covered pot until cool, then remove the stems and seeds. Scrape off the blackened skin (if you leave a little on the pepper, that's okay). Dice the flesh and set aside.

Warm the 1/4 cup diced onion over medium heat. Cook the onion and garlic until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add poblanos and cook another minute.

Crumble the rice into a large bowl. Add the onion mixture and stir well.

Whisk together the yogurt, cilantro and remaining raw onion. Stir into rice along with cheddar and corn.

Grease a 2-quart casserole. Spoon in the rice mixture. Cover and cook at 325°F for 25 minutes until heated through.

Serves 6

(This casserole can be made ahead and refrigerated. Bring it to room temperature before baking.)

Simple Casserole of Greens

With some fresh greens in the fridge, an easy and delicious meal is not far away.

Yesterday I picked some collard greens from our garden and combined them with the greens from a bunch of beets and some cooked brown rice to make a simple nutritious dinner.

I sautéed some onion and garlic in a little olive oil, then added the washed and chopped greens. I covered the pan and let the greens steam/sauté until they were wilted, stirring a few times so they didn't stick to the pan (although a little browning is no bad thing).

Brown rice bubbled away in the rice cooker, and when it was cooked I stirred in the greens and an egg. I put it all in a casserole dish, grated a little cheese on top, and baked it in the toaster oven at 350° for about 20 minutes. The egg helps the rice and greens hold together so it's more of a casserole. The cheese adds a little flavor and makes it all smell great while cooking.

It was a simple supper on a cool spring evening.

Red rice

I remember years ago hearing about the many colors of rice that used to be grown in Bali and Indonesia. Then foreigners moved in, bringing "superior" white rice and decimating the original varieties. This of course led to malnutrition and other problems.

Monoculture is always less healthy than diversity.

So when I saw organic pink Madagascar rice at Surfas, the cooking store in Culver City, the other day, I had to try it.

Dry, it looks like the rice served at Mexican restaurants that is white rice with red salsa stirred in. When cooked, it retains some of that pinkish color, although it can be confused with brown rice in low light. It has the texture of white rice, and cooks in only 20 minutes. I served it with leftover curried chickpeas, and it was great.

Plus I'm sure it has nutrients that white and brown rice don't have.

Bean and Rice Salad

I really love leftover rice. I freeze it to use later in rice and greens casserole (I wrote about a version with dandelions here). I toss it with vegetables to make fried rice.

However, this week I had an annoying amount left over, about 1 cup, not enough to serve the two of us. So I added it to my lunchtime salad.

I cooked 1/3 cup of appaloosa beans and tossed them with the rice. I added 2 tangelos and some cilantro. I tossed the salad with lime juice and olive oil.

Beans and rice together create a complete protein, and the citrus is extra good during cold and flu season. The cilantro helps the body release heavy metals.

But I really enjoyed it because it tasted good. If you have leftover rice, I encourage you to toss it with beans, citrus and cilantro to make a fun and colorful salad.

Orange Spiced Rice

I picked a couple of oranges on my way in from the garden the other day, and used the rinds in this wonderful rice dish inspired by a recipe in Chris and Carolyn Caldicott's beautiful book World Food Café. The pictures in this book are of the people and lands they visited in Asia and the middle East, Africa and Central and South America. And the recipes are all vegetarian, so it's quite inspiring.

I adapted a more complicated recipe into this simple rice cooker dish which had a bright flavor that went well with the leftover white bean and tomato stew. I used white basmati rice because it was late and I wanted to get dinner on the table. I'm pretty sure this would be good with brown rice, although more water would be needed.

That's an experiment for another day.

Orange Spiced Rice
2 oranges
2 tsp oil
1 onion
4 cloves
4 cardamom pods
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white basmati rice
2 bay leaves

Scrub the oranges well, and peel off the thin outer layer of zest, leaving the white behind. I used a zester which removes the peel in long narrow strips. If you use a regular peeler, slice the pieces thin after peeling them. Save the oranges for another use.

Put the pieces of zest in a small pot with 2 cups water and 2 tsp oil. Bring to a boil and cook, covered, 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, warm 1 tbsp oil and sauté the thinly-sliced onion, cloves, and the seeds from the cardamom pods until the onions start to brown. Season with 1/2 tsp salt.

Put the onion mixture in the rice cooker along with the orange zest and cooking water, the basmati rice, bay leaves, and an extra 1/2 cup of water. Run rice cooker as directed.

The ingredients will probably separate out during cooking, as you can see in the picture above. Stir it all back together and serve.

Serves 4-6

Dandelion Rice

Larry was away for a couple of days, so I decided to cook myself some dandelion greens.

Recipes always recommend buying young small dandelion greens, but those never seem to be available at the farmers market. Instead I come home with a big bunch of foot-long bitter greens.

But I was determined to make these taste good, because bitter greens are really good for the body. In part, this is because the bitterness stimulates the taste buds, increasing the production of saliva and digestive enzymes. This means the body does a great job of breaking down the food and absorbing nutrients from it, and quickly eliminates what it does not need.

Dandelion greens in particular are high in vitamins A and C, as well as iron and calcium. They're also  a good liver support. The liver is a major detoxification organ, so we need to keep it healthy as our bodies try to thrive in the polluted environment we live in.

Unfortunately, I am one of those overly-sensitive people who does not like bitter. I find celery and green peppers bitter, so you can imagine how I pucker with a dandelion green.

But I was not to be deterred.

I added a counter-balance of sweetness with a sautéed red onion and some balsamic vinegar. And I added blandness with a couple of cups of leftover cooked brown rice.

It actually turned out really well. I think Larry might have enjoyed it.

Dandelion Rice
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 red onion, peeled and chopped
1 bunch dandelion greens, tough stems discarded, washed well and chopped
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 cups cooked brown rice
olive oil
1 tomato (optional)

Sauté the onion in olive oil until soft and golden. Add the greens and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Then stir well, making sure to get all the greens coated in the oil and salt - this helps break them down so the body can better digest the nutrients.

When the greens are soft, stir in the balsamic vinegar and the brown rice.

You could probably eat it now, but I was using cold leftover rice and I wanted to warm it through. I spooned it into a casserole dish, sliced a tomato on top, and drizzled with olive oil and a last sprinkling of salt and pepper.

I covered the dish and baked it in the toaster oven at 350°F for 20 minutes until it was warm.

Serves 4-6