Stir-Fried Brown Rice ♥

Today's 'concept' recipe: Cooked brown rice stir-fried with edamame, bell pepper, bok choy, then tossed with tangerine and cashews.

What a great rice dish! With cooked rice using the great oven-baked brown rice from Kitchen Parade, it flew from stove to table in just 15 minutes. I call it a 'concept' recipe because it will adapt easily to what's on hand. But the combination of edamame beans, bell pepper, bok choy, tangerines and cashews was as flavorful as it was colorful, a definite keeper.

THE COOKBOOK Today's recipe comes from the brand-new cookbook from Nava Atlas, Vegan Express. During my vegetarian years, I cooked one recipe after another from Nava's Vegetarian Celebrations; later, it became the one vegetarian cookbook among many that continued to appeal to a new omnivore. I think the new Vegan Express will have similar cross-over appeal, in part because recipes call for ingredients that are 'whole' and 'real' (i.e., no processed veg(etari)an food products) and so are both familiar and easy to find without an extra trip to a health food store. Vegan Express might well appeal to:

• health-conscious cooks building more vegetables and plant-based foods into their diets
• home cooks feeding vegetarians and omnivores at the same table
• veg(etari)an cooks needing a reliable source of protein-rich recipes
  

Three more great features of Vegan Express:

• the recipes were developed while Nava was back in grad school and feeding hungry teenagers so they're quick, easy and family-friendly
  
• each recipe includes nutrition analysis! (may this please-please-please become a mandatory feature of all cookbooks and food magazines?!)
• the gorgeous photos are the work of fellow food blogger Susan Voisin from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen

MORE to COME I've already made two other recipes from Vegan Express, both with fewer calories/Weight Watchers points than many vegetarian main dishes seem to add up to. One's a soup that makes up in minutes -- I've been longing for a second batch ever since finishing the first. And just wait til you see the bok choy salad inspired by the leftover bok choy!

DISCLOSURE
Many thanks to Nava Atlas for a complimentary copy of her new book Vegan Express and the invitation to participate in this week's book launch. As always, readers can trust that I only write about cookbooks and products I really like. For more recipes from Nava, be sure to check out her own blog full of exploration, curiosity and of course, recipes -- it's called In a Vegetarian Kitchen.

Note to Vegetarians

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VEGETABLE RECIPES from the ARCHIVES
~ more edamame recipes ~
~ more bok choy recipes ~
~ more recipes with vegetables and rice ~

~ one year ago this week, Armenian Tahini Bread, "Flaky yet chewy, utterly seductive" ~

STIR-FRIED BROWN RICE

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 15 minutes (with cooked rice)
Makes 4 cups

2 cups cooked brown rice, half of Oven-Baked Brown Rice (Nava uses 2x more rice and cooks it on the stove, see Kitchen Notes below)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup frozen shelled edamame
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used orange but next time will use use red for more color contrast)
6 stalks baby boy choy, the stalks sliced on the diagonal and the leaves, chopped (next time I'll use more of this, it was really good, especially the leaves)
4 green onions, chopped

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
2 - 4 tablespoons teriyaki sauce or soy sauce (I used shozu, a fruity soy sauce)
1 - 2 teaspoons fresh or jarred ginger
Freshly ground pepper
1 tangerine, sections cut into pieces (Nava uses 2, I used one clementine)
1/4 cup toasted cashews (Nava uses 1/2 cup)

Heat the oil on medium high til shimmery in a large skillet. Add the edamame, pepper, bok choy stems (not the leaves, yet) and cook, stirring often, just until the bok choy is beginning to cook. Stir in the bok choy leaves and green onions as they're prepped, cook for another minute or two. Stir in the cooked rice and sesame oil, let warm through. Season to taste with the teriyaki sauce, fresh ginger and pepper. Stir in the tangerine pieces and cashews. Serve at once.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
Per Cup: 309 Cal (35% from Fat, 12% from Protein, 53% from Carb); 10 g Protein; 12 g Tot Fat; 2 g Sat Fat; 6 g Mono Fat; 42 g Carb; 6 g Fiber; NetCarb36; 5 g Sugar; 66 mg Calcium; 2 mg Iron; 531 mg Sodium; 3 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 7 points

KITCHEN NOTES
Nava's instructions for cooking brown rice: Rinse 1-1/2 cups long-grain brown rice and combine with 3 -1/2 cups water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat. Cover and simmer gently until the water is absorbed. (Note: I like to switch the proportion of starch:other so if you like this idea, too, cook 3/4 cup of brown rice to yield 2 cups cooked brown rice.)
Edamame beans are fresh green soybeans. I find them in the frozen section at Trader Joe's and in my usual supermarket in both shelled and unshelled. Nava suggests thawing the edamame beans but I had no trouble using them straight from the freezer

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Eat more vegetables! A Veggie Venture is the home of Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg and is the award-winning source of free vegetable recipes, quick, easy, and yes, delicious. Start with the Alphabet of Vegetables or dive into all the Weight Watchers vegetable recipes or all the low carb vegetable recipes. © Copyright 2008