I'm back... with a recipe!

I know I've been a real slacker lately. I promise it isn't because I hate blogging... in fact, it's just because I haven't really known what to write about. I've had a bad case of bloggers block.

Tonight, I made Ez and myself some nummy dinner. I'll tell you all about it.

I made it up on the fly, trying to think of something Mediterranean/Italian but that was Gluten Free (of course) and light... I didn't want anything too heavy. Summertime is not for super heavy saucy dishes in my mind.

So, I looked at what ingredients I had on hand.

Canned tomatoes and black olives, white rice (I would recommend brown rice, but I didn't have the time to cook rice for 80 minutes) fresh baby spinach, minced garlic, onion powder, fresh whole white mushrooms (the biggest I've ever seen!) olive oil, and dried basil... what to make?

So, I decided on a rice goulash of sorts. I call it...

SPINACH & STUFF RICE...
(I'm not too creative I guess! ha ha) 
And it looks a little something like this:

 
I started out making the plain rice... I usually have it on hand already made so that I can cut my cooking time down exponentially. As I said, I prefer brown rice, but decided on the quick route today with white rice.

Then, I got out a large bowl, and my other ingredients. 

1 1/2 - 2 cups CUT FRESH BABY SPINACH (I love the big bag of it at Costco)
1 Can of CANNED DICED TOMATOES (with the juice)
1 can of CANNED LARGE BLACK OLIVES
1-2 cups of FRESH WHOLE (EXTRA LARGE) WHITE MUSHROOMS


Take the baby spinach, and cut it... I guess you could use a food processor, but I wanted mine a little larger pieces so I used my kitchen scissors. (It made about 1 1/2-2 cups of spinach) then put it in the bowl.

Then I took the canned diced tomatoes and added the tomatoes and the juice to the spinach in the bowl. 


Then I put the large black olives in to my Vita Mix 5200 and chopped them finely (this was more for my toddler's benefit... if veg is too big, he usually turns up his nose so I have to hide it).  I then added the finely chopped olives to the bowl. 

I then chopped up the mushrooms in to 1/4- 1/2 inch square pieces... just diced them, I didn't bother measuring them with a ruler or anything... then I added them to the bowl too. 


I mixed everything together and then let the bowl sit for a little while as I prepared the stove top. For this you'll need:


2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1- 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon (or more depending on your tastes) dried BASIL
A few shakes of onion powder (again, make it taste good to you)
About a 1/4 teaspoon of salt... (add however much you want, I don't like things salty, because I like to taste the freshness of my food)


I added 2 Tablespoons of Olive oil to the pan and set the temp to med-high and added 1 teaspoon of minced garlic (I might have added a little bit more, since I love garlic so much... but just add it to your taste preference). I continually stirred the garlic and oil so that the garlic wouldn't burn. STIR STIR STIR. 


Add the basil and the onion powder. Continue to stir for about 2 minutes. Once you feel the garlic is cooked enough so as not to be too pungent, add the bowl of ingredients to the pan. 


Stir it all together and saute for about 3 minutes... just enough to cook the mushrooms a little bit but not long enough to give yourself soggy spinach. (You be the judge) 


Add your salt, and stir some more, then add your rice (about 2 cups worth of cooked rice) and stir it all together and set it aside. 


This should feed about 3 or 4 people. 


I think if you wanted to, you could add some bacon or chicken to it and it would be delicious! 

 Yummy in the tummy! It has Ez's stamp of approval... which is saying a lot!

With Love,
Suz