Green Veggie Rice with Fried Egg

As I’ve mentioned previously, I try to use up all of our produce- rather than throwing it all out!  Sometimes I might not get to a recipe I wanted to try, or I get a little crazy at the Penn Quarter Farmers Market and buy too many greens.  Or as I browse through other blogs, magazines or cookbooks I get inspirations about trying new things.  Where do you get your cooking inspiration or recipe ideas?

How did this recipe make itself?
1) I was walking through Whole Foods, and I came across Lundberg Black Japonica rice.  It’s a whole-grain blend of short-grain black rice and medium-grain mahogany rice which originates from Japanese seeds.  It looked so pretty, I just had to buy it!

2) I’m not the hugest fan of kale, until I tried this recipe.  Although I’ve added it to many dishes (kale lasagna, kale white bean & potato soup, pomegranate and kale orzo salad), I haven’t been sold on it.  Until I saw baby kale in the grocery store, and I decided to give it another chance.  Although I didn’t have a recipe for it, I wanted to incorporate kale into something.

3) Fried eggs make everything better.  Trust me!  (burgers, pizza, BLTs, asparagus, soups, noodles, salads- have I sold you yet?)

4) I wanted to clean out our fridge, and I hate taking everything out and putting it back in.  I prefer if the fridge is very very empty- makes the chore so much easier!

As a side note: This weekend I’ll be attending my first food blogger conference- Eat, Write Retreat 2012.  I’m very excited to meet other fellow food bloggers and learn some new things!  And I can’t wait to check out what’s in my swag bag!

Green Veggie Rice with Fried Egg
Fifth Floor Kitchen original

If you don’t have this specific rice, you can substitute with brown or wild rice- both will taste equally delicious.  As noted above, feel free to experiment with other greens if you don’t have kale or swiss chard on hand (ex: spinach, arugula, beet greens, mustard greens, bok choy, etc).

1 cup Lundberg Black Japonica Rice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 bunch of swiss chard, roughly chopped
1 bunch of baby kale, roughly chopped
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp crushed red pepper (optional)
juice of 1 lemon

In a medium saucepan, cook rice in water per package instructions.  Drain and keep covered.

In a large saucepan, heat olive oil.  Add the onion and cook until translucent.  Then add the garlic, cook for another 3 minutes.  Next add the swiss chard and baby kale.  Cover and cook, stir a few times, until the veggies are tender.  Add the rice into the saucepan, mix all of the ingredients together.  Season with soy sauce, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and lemon juice.  Allow to simmer while you fry the egg.

In a small pan, fry an egg per each serving.  We prefer runny eggs, but fry it to your preference.

Plate the rice and veggie mixture, top with a fried egg.

Tomato Soup with Basil

As the days get warmer, and the sun shines longer, no one wants to be stuck in the kitchen.  Especially with the oven on…too hot!  As I mentioned before, I try to search out recipes that are fast, simple, and require very minimal cooking.  But just because you want a simpler recipe, does not mean that flavor has to be lost.

This is a very simple soup, although I’ve noticed I say that quite a bit!  Nonetheless, it’s hearty enough to fill you up (thanks to the rice)- but not too much that you feel stuffed.  And, it’s easy since I cooked it between going for a run.  Once all the ingredients were boiling, I grabbed my shoes for a quick run around the Mall.  By the time I came back, the soup was done cooking.

We let it cool off a bit before we ate, a bit more “gazpacho” style.  And even though it was cooler, it still had the great flavor.  Tomato season hasn’t started yet, but this would be a great one to do with fresh tomatoes rather than the canned.  It would give the soup more flavor.  But that’s something we’ll have to wait for, and enjoy over the summer.

We bought some bread from the Farmer’s Market, and ate it with the soup.  The bread was dense, and it absorbed some of the liquid from the soup, giving it a little more flavor.  Yum!

Tomato Soup with Basil
Adapted from: A Chow Life Blog

4 tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans whole tomatoes (28 oz each)
1/4 cup basil, finely chopped
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
1 chicken bouillon
2 cups chicken broth
4 cups water
1/4 cup rice

In a large pot, warm the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic, let it sauté for about 8 minutes, until the onions are translucent.  Then add the tomatoes, basil, sugar, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.  Cook for about 1 minute.  Then add the bouillon, broth and water.  Stir in the rice, and cover the pot until the soup is boiling.

Let it simmer for 15-25 minutes.  Remove the tomatoes from the soup and add them to a food processor (or blender).  Blend until it turns into smaller chunks (choose the consistency to your liking).  Pour back into the pot, cover, and simmer for another 10 minutes.

When serving, feel free to sprinkle some basil as a garnish.

Book Club Pt 3- Beef & Rice Stuffed Zucchini

Book Club dish #2!  This was actually a lot easier to make than I had envisioned.  The thought of hollowing out all of those zucchini worried me just a bit.  But armed with a teaspoon (we don’t have a melon ball spoon), I did it!  Once I got the hang of it, and didn’t break any chunks off, it was done quicker than I thought.

Once again Faith, from An Edible Mosaic Blog, gave me the idea which I pushed a little further.  She had learned this recipe from her mother-in-law who is living in Syria.  This is a very similar recipe that many people use for stuffed peppers.  I added some more flavor to the sauce since I was using canned sauce (tomatoes are not yet in season here in DC, and the one’s from the grocery store taste awful!).  Instead of beef, ground chicken or turkey can be used. 

This would be another dish I’d try out for a dinner party, the sauce can be made a day ahead- and the prepping of the zucchini did not take long.  I’d say 2 pieces of zucchini per person, especially if there was other food (appetizers, dessert, etc).

Beef & Rice Stuffed Zucchini
Adapted from:An Edible Mosaic Blog

6 zucchini
1 1/2 cup rice (uncooked)
4 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes
3 oz tomato paste
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp curry
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 beef bouillon cubes
3 bay leaves
1 lb ground beef
3 tbsp butter, melted

Wash the zucchini, and cut off the ends.  Then cut each zucchini into 2 or 3 equal pieces (this will be determined by the zucchini size), about 3-4 inches long.  Using a melon ball spoon (I used a teaspoon) hollow out each piece of zucchini, but be careful to keep the walls intact.  *the leftover zucchini insides can be used for zucchini bread!*

Then, in a large pot heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic, saute for 6-8 minutes or until soft.  Remove 3/4 of the onion-garlic mixture and put in separate bowl.  Add a can of crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, allspice, cumin, curry, bouillon and bay leaves into the pot.  Also add 1 tsp of salt, and 1 tsp of pepper, as well as 1 cup of water.  Heat this sauce over low heat.

Meanwhile, add the ground meat (raw), rice (uncooked), melted butter, and the rest of the salt and pepper (1 tsp each) to the onion-garlic  mixture in a bowl.  Mix this together, and then begin stuffing each zucchini with the meat-rice mixture.  Pack it in tight, leaving about a 1/4 inch gap between the top of the zucchini and the mixture.  (the rice will expand when cooking)

Once complete, add the stuffed zucchini into the simmering tomato sauce, trying to submerge most of the zucchini into the sauce.  Cook on medium to low heat, covered for about 1 hour.  The zucchini will be soft once it’s cooked (I took one out to double-check and tested the softness with a fork).

Wild Rice Salad

This is another one of our salad’s, which we brought to work for lunch.  It was a Sunday night, and we didn’t have any leftovers- so this was a fast salad to put together.  The rice took the longest to cook, but if you have extra rice on hand- feel free to use that.  The additions to the salad can be changed around- originally the recipe calls for pine nuts, but since we didn’t have any- sunflower seeds it was.  It was a great texture change (crispy sunflowers vs. soft rice).  Cherries can be swapped for cranberries, onion for green onion, etc.  This is a great use of brown/wild rice, especially if when there are leftovers.

Wild Rice Salad
Adapted from: Vegetarian Times Magazine

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbsp grated orange zest
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 cups brown rice, cooked
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup fresh mint, chopped
3 green onions, sliced

Whisk together oil, orange juice, orange zest and mustard in a bowl.  Then add the cooked rice, cranberries, mint and green onions.  Toss to coat the salad.  Season with salt and pepper if necessary.

Chile Reyenos with Rice

Sometimes everyone needs a little more green in their lives- and this recipe is defeinitely green!  Different cheeses can be substituded in the chiles, depending on your liking.  This can be a side dish- or a main dish.  Although, the amount of rice and cheese was perfectly filling.  You can also change up the heat level of this recipe- jalapenos can be excluded, or more heat can be added. 

Chile Reyenos with Rice
Adapted from: So Good and Tasty Blog

4 poblano chiles
1/8 lb smoked cheddar, shredded
1/8 lb smoked mozzarella, shredded
1 cup parsley, chopped
1 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
5 garlic cloves, chopped
2 jalapenos, chopped
2 cups rice
3 cups 1% milk
2 tsp salt
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Lay the whole peppers on a pan, and place it in the upper third of the oven.  Roast them for 10 minutes, and then turn them over.  Roast for another 15 minutes, make sure all the sides are evenly roasted.  Once they are roasted, take them out of the oven and let the cool.  Remove the stem and seeds from the chiles; cut in half.  Divide both of the cheeses between the 4 poblano peppers.  Set aside.

In a food processor combine parsley, onion, garlic, jalapenos and 1/3 cup of water.  Blend thoroughly.   

In a saucepan, heat the milk with the salt.  Once the water has began boiling, add the rice.  Turn down the heat to low and cook.  After 5 minutes, add the parsley mixture from the food processor.  Stir, and then cover; cook for 25 minutes.  Meanwhile, place the chiles into the oven for about 5 minutes- or until the cheese has melted.  When the rice is done, transfer to the serving dish.  Then place a poblano chile on top.  Sprinkle with red pepper flakes.