Tag: rice

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There’s No Zucchini Here

Zucchini Rice Casserole
Zucchini Rice Casserole

Not to keep harping on this, but there are just some foods I was traumatized by as a child. Zucchini is one of them. I just can’t help thinking of phlegm.

As part of my effort to bring the ‘good’ foods back into my house, I’m trying out zucchini again. But I still cringe at MY OWN cooking if there’s zucchini in it. So the more I hide it FROM MYSELF, the happier I am. Blegh.

Enter the grater. Make it as small as possible. Hite it. And add cheese. It really works. Not only do I eat this, but The Man eats it. He actually says ‘yum’ when he finds me making it. I am NOT shitting you.

First make 1 cup of basmati rice, which becomes a little over 2 cups. While that’s cooling off a little, grate up
3 small zucchinis (or two medium ones, but this is a case of smaller is better)
2 medium carrots
6 to 8 ounces of cheddar (white sharp cheddar, not the orange junk)

You’ll need to toss that in a large, heat-resistant bowl with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar, and 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Keep a little of the grated cheese to sprinkle on top later. Add in:
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon mustard (Ba-Tampte is our current fav.)
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt (more if you like salt)
¼ teaspoon chili powder (or just a nice dash of cayenne)

I like to add in a few cloves of crushed garlic, or half of an onion, diced fine. I like to add some protein in the form of a can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed. Once you mix it all together to get all moist and evenly spread around, scoop in the rice and mix it up a bit more. Pour this into a casserole dish – I like to separate it into two 8”x8” dishes so that I can bake the second one in a few days for fresh casserole. Spread it out and smoosh it flatter or the pokes of rice will get overly crunchy, and then sprinkle with cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese gets nice and bubbly with a little golden color. Probably about 20 minutes or so. After a few minutes to cool, you’re good to go. You can’t even tell there’s zucchini in there. Really. You don’t even have to tell anyone.

So, ingredient synopsis:
2 cups prepared basmati rice
3 small zucchinis, grated
2 medium carrots, grated
6-8 oz sharp cheddar, grated
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. rice vinegar
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon mustard
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon chili powder (or just a nice dash of cayenne)
Either 3 nice cloves of garlic crushed, or ½ finely diced onion (optional)
1 can cannellini beans (optional)

If you want to hide the zucchini in there a little better, maybe finely chop up some spinach to camouflage the green bits 😉

[Girl21]

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“Chicken” and Rice Casserole

'Chicken' and Rice Casserole

I love one-pot meals and casseroles, but I’ve heard people really flip out when faced with even the word ‘casserole’. I can only assume that someone made a bunch of bad casseroles and turned some of my friends against casseroles for life.

Be that as it may (I love saying that), casseroles are great because I am short on time and big on odd ingredients. As much as The Man would be happy with a sandwich or pizza for dinner, I kind of like to serve a meal that’s relatively healthy, tasty, and balanced. He just cares about the tasty part.

The tricky part always is protein, and because you never really know, I try to vary our protein source. Enter Quorn (sounds like ‘corn’), a fake meat-like product based on mycoprotein. Um, yes, that’s a filament fungus, like what’s growing in the ground that produces mushrooms. I like the ‘Chik’n Tenders’ because they’re basically big chunks of blank slate. You can do whatever you want to them and they take it.

You can do this quick and easy, or you can take some time to put the bells and whistles on. I’m doing it quick and easy here today because I need to work out while it’s baking. Also, I have leftover brown rice, so one less thing to actually make.

And please totally note that I’m not being paid anything to endorse Quorn. I just like the stuff.

“Chicken” and Rice Casserole
Serves 4-6

3 cups cooked brown rice
1 package Quorn Chik’n Tenders (340g)
1 jar pasta sauce (24 oz.)
1 cup grated cheddar
½ cup grated mozzarella
1 medium onion

1. Dice up the onion and toss it in a medium sauce pot with the Quorn, a little olive oil, and about ¾ of the pasta sauce. Yes, jarred pasta sauce. I only buy the fancy stuff that actually tastes good and keep it handy for these kinds of meals.

2. Heat this on medium heat, stirring regularly until it’s bubbling a bit. The Quorn needs to thaw out and soak up some of the sauce, and the onions need to do that thing that onions do.

3. While that’s bubbling, mix half of your cheddar and some salt and pepper (and maybe some garlic powder and Italian seasonings) in with your rice and settle it in the bottom of a casserole dish. I have a 1.4L one that I like because it’s deeper and keeps things moister.

4. Mix up your remaining cheese and spread half of this over the rice. Pour your Quorn/sauce mix over this and spread it evenly, then sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top of this.

5. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until it’s bubbling and the cheese looks fabulous. It needs to set up for a few minutes because it’s freaking hot.

The best brown rice recipe is Alton Brown’s baked version which I swear by and always works. Again, no effort and great result. If you need to make the rice for this, it’s simple to make it in your casserole dish, do your thing, and put everything back into your casserole dish. One less thing to wash is always WIN for me.

As a side note, I also do this with barbecue sauce instead of pasta sauce and that’s super tasty too. I don’t know why people have to be hating on casseroles. Especially those of us with 40 hour days to fit into a normal 24 hours.

[Girl21]