Clean Eating Recipe: brown rice with roasted beets, beet greens, roasted zucchini, feta cheese, and toasted pine nuts.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups cooked brown rice (I use Trader Joe's frozen brown rice - so easy!)
- 1 bunch beets with tops (any kind)
- 1 medium zucchini
- 1/4 cup pine nuts
- crumbled feta cheese (I used TJ's fat free)
- olive oil
- garlic powder
- salt and pepper
Directions:
- The first step is roasting the beets. This takes about 1 hour, so plan ahead! You could roast the beets ahead of time and refrigerate them until you are ready to eat.
- I cut the tops off the beets and set them aside, and cut off the ends of the beets, leaving the skin on. I wrapped them in aluminum foil and placed the foil packet directly on the middle rack of a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour (you want them to be easily pierced with a fork).
- When beets are done cooking, the peels should slide off easily. Tip: Wear gloves when peeling if you are using red beets, and wear an apron - they stain!!
- Chop beets into medium sized chunks and set aside.
- While the beets are cooking, start boiling a pot of water.
- Wash and pat dry your beet tops. I personally do not like the stems, so I sliced the leaves off the stems.
- When water is boiling, add the beet greens and blanch for about 3 minutes. Drain them in a colander and run them under cool water.
- When your beets are done roasting, turn the oven up to 450.
- To roast your zucchini, slice it lengthwise into quarters (you want the pieces to be about the size of sliced carrots).
- Place zucchini on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of garlic powder if you like.
- Roast on the top rack of the oven at 450 for about 5 minutes or until the ends of the zucchini are beginning to brown.
- While zucchini is cooking, toast your pine nuts in a hot pan until golden.
- When zucchini is done, chop into small pieces.
- When all your veggies and nuts are done cooking, place cooked rice in a large bowl and add chopped beets, cooked beet greens, and chopped zucchini. Add as much as you like. Add feta cheese, pine nuts, about 1 tsp. of olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.
- Eat and enjoy!
