Everyday Vegetables

Since both D and I have finished our senior theses, we have a lot more time on our hands and have been cooking dinner more often. This was our simple creation for dinner last night.

This would be a great dish to serve on a Meatless Monday. Add a can of chickpeas to the roasted veggies along with the bell peppers if you're concerned about getting enough protein.

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45-Minute Dinner: Cauliflower, Green Beans and Rice
serves 3-4

Equipment:
Baking sheet
Pot
Stove
Knife
Cutting board
Tongs

Ingredients:
1.5c brown rice, uncooked
1 head cauliflower
0.5 lb green beans
0.5 red bell pepper
1 can garbanzo beans (optional)
2 cloves garlic
2t garam masala (optional)
olive oil
salt, pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450°F.
2. In your pot, put the 1.5c of brown rice along with 4c of cold tap water. Turn the heat to high. When it boils, turn the heat back down to as low as possible, and set a timer for 40 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, clean and chop your veggies. Toss the cauliflower with olive oil and the garam masala on the baking tray. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. At 20 minutes left in the rice cooking, put the cauliflower in the oven. Toss every 5 minutes to prevent burning and to let any steam escape from the oven.
5. At 10 minutes left in the rice timer, add the green beans and garlic to the cauliflower, tossing to mix. Turn the broiler on and place the veggies back under the broiler.
6. At 5 minutes left on the timer, toss the bell pepper and garbanzo beans with the veggies and return to the broiler.
7. When the timer is done, remove the rice from the stovetop. Check your veggies. If they are golden brown in places, they're done. Otherwise, toss them again and throw them back in for 5 minutes. (The rice will stay hot, I promise.)
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Note: If you have a separate broiler compartment or your broiler takes a while to heat up, you may want to preheat it. Mine heats in about 30 seconds and can't be used at the same time as the oven, so I just changed it over when the veggies went back in the oven at step 5.

Do you participate in Meatless Mondays? Leave a comment or email me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com. 


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thirty minute dinner and dessert

We prepped a bit beforehand because we had to travel to the kitchen with all of our stuff, but I got home from practice at 6:15 and we had dinner on the table by 6:45. Dinner was pasta with chicken and veggies plus chocolate chip cranberry nut scones for dessert. If you spend 10 minutes (or less) prepping in the morning before you head out for the day, you could have dinner + dessert ready in thirty minutes or less.

The leftover scones make great breakfast/snack the next day, too!!!

The recipe looks complicated, but it's pretty simple. Basically, mix the scone batter while you're waiting for the water to boil, and bake them while the pasta is cooking. (You can also bake them while you're eating, if it's too hectic to try to bake them while cooking.) Then once the pasta is in the water, cook green beans, and heat pre-cooked chicken, canned corn and tomato sauce; combine with pasta and you have dinner. Yum!

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Thirty Minute Meal
serves four

Awesome green beans

I've had green beans before. I've had good green beans before. These are awesome green beans.

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Awesome Green Beans
serves 2-4


Ingredients
1/2 T butter
1 shallot, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, thinly sliced into strips
1 lb. green beans
1/2 T butter
1.5 cups white wine