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.
