Almost Vegetarian Rice Bowl Inspired By TheKitchn

 

It's almost weekend! For me, it's almost a 3 day weekend! Yes, I'm slightly excited even though I have zero plans. I'll deal ;)

Since it's still Thursday and most of us are at work, let's talk about work lunches. I do my best to bring leftovers to work for lunch and not to be tempted by food trucks parked outside of my building. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail.

Last week when I saw a recipe for Quinoa Bowl With Kimchi on TheKitchn, I thought it'd be a brilliant dish to make and bring to work for lunch. Luckily, I had most of the ingredients at home: kimchi, mushrooms, broccoli, etc.

Or did I? When I went to make the recipe, I realized I was out of quinoa! Oy. Not that I was shocked: I'm not a huge quinoa fan, so it's not surprising I did not have it on hand. I decided to use rice. The only variety of rice I had was Arborio, and I wasn't sure it would work. Luckily it did.


Note on rice: when cooking rice, I first washed the rice several times. I then toasted it in a bit of olive oil. To cook the rice, I used home made chicken broth and added a bit of salt and mushroom stems to flavor the rice. If you use water or vegetable stock, this recipe will be vegetarian!

Almost Vegetarian Rice Bowl Inspired By TheKitchn
Makes 3-4 servings

Ingredients
3 peppers, sliced
2 portobella mushroom caps, sliced {see the note above on what to do with the stems}
1 large zucchini, cut into coins
2 teaspoons olive oil
salt & pepper
cooked rice
1-2 teaspoons toasted sesame seed oil
kimchi
soy sauce
sriracha
black sesame seeds
chives

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 425. Toss the vegetables with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast in a single layer for 30 to 40 minutes making sure to turn the vegetables a few times.
2. Once the rice is cooked (or reheated), drizzle it with a bit of toasted sesame seed oil.
3. Spoon the rice into bowls and top with roasted vegetables and kimchi.
4. Depending on your taste and heat tolerance, top each rice bowl with soy sauce, sriracha, black sesame seeds and chives.
5. Eat right away or at room temperature.

This was such a flavorful rice bowl. The bowl is something I made in my pottery class and am in ♥ with ;) You'll see it a lot on the blog.

Happy almost weekend!