Kitchiri with Roasted Broccoli

This is one of my favorite meals.  I should say that this is what a lot of my meals look like.  I quite often cook up some kind of rice-and-beans type dish to keep in the fridge and reheat as needed for weekday lunches for the kids and myself and then I roast some veggies to go with it, and ta-da, a really fast, balanced meal.  Of course with a little one attached to me most of the day I find a few minutes whenever I can to chop the veggies, in this case broccoli, and store it in a container in the fridge until I need it then at lunch time it’s even easier.

In fact, every week I find at least an hour to just chop and store fruits and vegetables so that they’re ready to go in the fridge.  You would be amazed how much of a difference it makes when they’re ready to go and all you have to do is open a container.  And, with my kids I’ve found if raw vegetables are washed, peeled, chopped and ready to go in the fridge, they’ll even eat some of them raw, so it’s well worth the effort to do a lot of my veggie prep before-hand 🙂

So, the main star of this show is Kitchiri.  Rice and lentils make this a cheap meal to prepare, but it is so delicious!  You really have to trust me and try it.  It doesn’t look like much but it is so good!  I chose to garnish mine with cilantro, which I highly recommend, but if you don’t like cilantro it’s just as good with parsley or just without it.

Now that things are warming up, I’m not roasting vegetables as much, but it really is my favorite way to prepare veggies, especially ones that people don’t always enjoy eating steamed or otherwise prepared.  It’s really so simple and you can do it with most any vegetables, but just in case, I’ll put my method for roasting broccoli into a handy printable for you 🙂

[print_this] Simple Roasted Broccoli

• 1 head broccoli
• 1-2 tbsp oil
• a generous sprinkle of salt

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Chop the broccoli into small bite sized pieces, including the stem part after it’s been peeled.  Place on the baking sheet, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt.  Stir to distribute the oil and then place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, flipping once in between.  Broccoli is done when it’s bright green with brown, crispy edges.  Serve immediately.[/print_this]

Oh, and before I forget again, so many of you have been asking how things are with our new little one – thank you so much!  She’s not so new anymore – she’s a month old already!  Even though I knew what to expect this time around, I feel like this time while she’s so tiny is slipping away from me no matter how hard I try to hold onto it.  I’ve had quite a few women with older children say they don’t miss this stage at all, which I can understand, but I don’t feel that way at all and I really wish I could just hang onto it for a little while longer.  I’m afraid I’ll blink and she’ll be going into kindergarten like my oldest is in the fall 🙁

Despite that, things are going great and we’re really looking forward to the summer.  I am planning on a few non-food posts on how I keep my little one happy and my two older kids(2 and 4 years old) busy and entertained while I’m in the kitchen – let me know if you’d be interested in reading something like that!  And thank you again for all your kind comments, they mean so much to me!

[print_this]Kitchiri

Serves 4-6

Slightly adapted from  The Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook by Roz Denny

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 4 tbsp butter or oil
• 1 1/4 C uncooked long grain brown rice(preferably basmati)
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 2 cloves
• 3 cardamom pods (or about 1 tsp ground cardamom)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 C vegetable stock or water
• 1/4 C tomato puree
• 1 C dry green or brown lentils
• salt & fresh ground black pepper
• 3 tbsp fresh cilantro or 3 tbsp parsley, chopped for serving

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