A Healthy and Delicious Vegetable Rice Medley

I've been wanting to put this post up for a while, but every time I've made this dish, without fail, I'm running way behind in my day and run out of time to do the pictures or I do them too quickly and they don't turn out. Luckily I make this dish a lot! Probably because my 2 year old loves it and it's a great substitute for bread in our dinner meal. I don't know about you all, but I like to have some type of bread with my dinner meal. However, my son is showing possible signs of gluten intolerance, so I'm trying to cut back on our consumption of wheat. Believe it or not, we actually don't eat that much wheat, at least not in comparison to most, despite my recent posts.

Rice is a great alternative to bread and it fills you up in the same way. Plus, in this dish you get tons of great vegetables and I cook the rice in broth. It's packed with nutrition. That's my type of dish!

You can make this recipe with frozen or fresh vegetables. If you don't want to slave over the stove, use frozen, simply because they are already cut up and ready to go. It doesn't take long to prep fresh vegetables and I personally prefer fresh, but there are those days... You can also use the rice of your choice, although brown rice is more healthy than white. I usually use a long grain brown rice. The only rice I'd strongly recommend not using is any type of instant rice. I know, I know, it's so much easier to make the instant stuff, but I kind of equate it to eating rice shaped Styrofoam. Harsh, but it's important to make every meal count for nutrition and cooking regular rice isn't harder, it just takes a bit longer and it's worth it for the extra nutrition.

Below is an excerpt from an excellent article about the health benefits of brown rice. I'd highly recommend reading it. I believe when we are armed with the right information we are more likely to pursue a healthier form of eating. It's easy for someone to tell you to eat a certain way because it's healthy, it's entirely another thing when you actually understand why what your eating is healthy.

"The difference between brown rice and white rice is not just color! A whole grain of rice has several layers. Only the outermost layer, the hull, is removed to produce what we call brown rice. This process is the least damaging to the nutritional value of the rice and avoids the unnecessary loss of nutrients that occurs with further processing. If brown rice is further milled to remove the bran and most of the germ layer, the result is a whiter rice, but also a rice that has lost many more nutrients. At this point, however, the rice is still unpolished, and it takes polishing to produce the white rice we are used to seeing. Polishing removes the aleurone layer of the grain-a layer filled with health-supportive, essential fats. Because these fats, once exposed to air by the refining process, are highly susceptible to oxidation, this layer is removed to extend the shelf life of the product. The resulting white rice is simply a refined starch that is largely bereft of its original nutrients.

Our food ranking system qualified brown rice as an excellent source of manganese, and a good source of the minerals selenium and magnesium. The complete milling and polishing that converts brown rice into white rice destroys 67% of the vitamin B3, 80% of the vitamin B1, 90% of the vitamin B6, half of the manganese, half of the phosphorus, 60% of the iron, and all of the dietary fiber and essential fatty acids. By law in the United States, fully milled and polished white rice must be 'enriched' with vitamins B1, B3, and iron. But the form of these nutrients when added back into the processed rice is not the same as in the original unprocessed version, and at least 11 lost nutrients are not replaced in any form even with rice 'enrichment.'"

~ www.whfoods.com, Brown Rice


What You'll Need - Serves 4-6

• Olive oil
• 1 1/2 cup brown rice
• 3+ cups of chicken, beef or vegetable broth
• 1 tsp of salt for unsalted broth plus more for seasoning with later
• 1 cup diced fresh fresh/frozen carrots
• 1 cup fresh/frozen green beans
• 1 cup onion chopped
• 1 cup cashews
• 1 tsp of dried thyme
• 3 cloves of smashed and diced garlic
• 1 cup fresh/frozen peas
• 1 cup fresh/frozen corn

• Skillet
• Pot with lid to cook rice in
• Sharp knife
• Stirring spoon

Getting Started
1. Cook your rice per directions on package, except use the broth as your liquid instead of water. If you are using unsalted broth add 1 tsp of salt to it for extra flavor. If you buy your rice in bulk, 1 1/2 cups of rice to 3 cups of broth usually works pretty good. An FYI... if you think you can try to speed up the cook time on brown rice by turning the heat up higher, forget it. I'm telling you this, because I've been guilty of trying to do this! Brown rice usually takes about 45 minutes to cook and you need to cook it at a simmer, otherwise you boil away all the liquid and will find yourself burning your rice on the bottom of the pot. No fun! If you know you'll be in a time crunch on the day you're going to make this dish, you can make the rice ahead of time and then re-heat it.

2. If using fresh vegetables, steam your carrot pieces, which shouldn't take long, probably 10 minutes at the most and they only need to be cooked until they are soft on the outside and a bit hard on the inside, i.e., al dente, because you'll cook them a bit more later. When the carrots are getting close to being done add your fresh green beans and let them finish steaming together, then set them aside.

3. Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy bottom skillet (I like to use my Lodge cast iron skillet; it works great for recipes like this). Toss in your chopped onion and cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes until onion has softened. Add your cashews and cook for a couple more minutes until the cashews start to turn brown/toasted on the outside.



4. For fresh vegetables: Add your garlic, thyme, cooked carrots, cooked green beans, fresh peas, fresh corn and a bit more olive oil if it's needed and saute over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes.

5. For frozen vegetables: Add your garlic, thyme, all your frozen vegetables and a bit more olive oil if it's needed and saute over medium-high heat until they are hot, about 3-5 minutes.

Note: If you are using a mixture of fresh and frozen vegetables, which I often do in the winter, simply make sure to add your frozen vegetables at the end and saute them for just a couple minutes. You don't want to overcook them.



6. Finally, add your cooked rice and approx. 1 tablespoon of olive oil and saute everything together for about 1 minute. Dish it up and enjoy!

This dish is best hot, but can be eaten at room temperature too, for instance if you wanted to take it to a potluck. It also makes great leftovers!

Dog Treats

I use dog treats for training my little, 6-pound Yorkie. They are primarily his reward for going to the bathroom OUTSIDE, instead of on my carpet. It's amazing how many times a day a 6-pound dog has to go to the bathroom! You can buy dog treats everywhere, but be careful – look at the ingredients sometime and you may be shocked at what you find. Higher end pet food shops have healthier treats available, but your wallet will be a bit lighter once you've paid for them, especially if you use them often.

Several months ago, I was making chicken broth and was noticing how easily the left-over bones broke in my hands after my broth had cooked for 24 hours. I hated throwing all these ingredients away, but also didn't know what to do with them. I didn't want to feed it directly to my dog and risk him choking on one of the small bones. That's when it occurred to me to try blending the left-over mixture in my food processor. It worked great and I was left with a thick paste that could be easily fed to my dog directly or I could add some flour to make dog biscuits.


What You'll Need

• Left over bones, meat and vegetables from making chicken broth
  
• 3-4 cups flour of your choice, just not white flour, we're trying to make a healthy
  treats, I used organic whole wheat in this batch
• 1 tablespoon sea salt or "pet salt"
  

• Food processor
• Large mixing bowl
• Mixing spoon
• Parchment paper cut to the size of your cookie sheet
  
• cookie sheet
• sharp knife or cookie cutters
• rolling pin

Getting Started

Turn you oven on to 250 degrees. Then, in batches, puree a mixture of the vegetables, the small soft bones and meat in your food processor. Don't use bones that can't easily be broken in your hands. The vinegar added to your chicken broth should have broken down your bones enough that most of the small ones will be very easy to break, some will probably crumble in your hands.

Puree mixture until very smooth. This may take a little bit of time. The last batch I made I pureed for close to 10 minutes. Your goal is to get two cups of pureed mixture for each batch of biscuits. If you have more then that, save it in the freezer or double/triple the biscuit recipe. You can also save the pureed mixture and give a spoon full or two to your dog as a treat this way. It should keep in your fridge for a couple of days or freeze small portions in ice cube trays.


Scoop pureed mixture into a large mixing bowl and add 2 cups flour and salt. Using your hands or a spoon, mix ingredients together. Add an additional 1/2 cup flour at a time, mixing thoroughly between additions, until you have a soft dough. Try to add as little flour as possible, just for the sake of your pet. You are trying to get a dough that you'll be able to roll out on parchment paper.

Place the dough onto parchment paper and if necessary knead a little to make sure all the flour is incorporated. Using your rolling pin, roll dough out to 1/8 "- 1/4" thick. If dough is sticky, sprinkle a little flour on top of it as you roll it out.

Next, cut shapes out of your dough and place them on a lined baking sheet. Since I'm making treats for a very small dog, I cut small squares, preferably no bigger then 1/4", into my dough using a sharp knife. It's very easy to do it this way and when you are done you move the parchment paper with the cut dough still on it, directly to your cookie sheet. There is no need to separate the cut squares, once they are done baking they are easy to break apart.


Place cookie sheet into preheated oven and bake for 2-3 hours or until biscuits have mostly dried out. If you have a pet that has a difficult time eating hard biscuits, consider only baking them for 1 - 2 hours. Store a small amount in the fridge and keep the rest in the freezer.

Now isn't that easy? And your dog will have a little more love for you!