Vegetable Bowl

As the day was winding down at work today, I was trying to decide what to make for dinner. We had several vegetables near the end of their lives and I knew that we had a lot of lentils and rice in the pantry. Thus the vegetable bowl with lentils and rice was born!

Serves: 2 (with about 1 cup leftover lentils, and 1 cup leftover vegetables)

Ingredients
Lentils
1/3 - 1/2 cup brown lentils
1+ cups water
cumin
chipotle powder
turmeric
smoked paprika
salt
pepper

Rice
1 "cup" rice
1.5 "cup" water
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

Vegetables
1/2 medium butternut squash
3 stalks broccoli
1/2 onion
4 stalks rainbow chard
olive oil
salt
pepper
basil
rosemary


Method
Lentils
Measure and rinse lentils. Place in a small saucepan and add water and spices. Cover and bring to a boil. Turn to a medium simmer and stir every so often to prevent sticking. Cook until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.

Rice
Using the "cup" measuring device from your rice cooker, measure and rinse rice. Put rice in rice cooker with the water and cumin seeds. My very simple cooker has one setting, but if you have a fancy pants cooker, you might want to set it specifically to the type of rice you are using. Cook until rice is done.

Vegetables
Preheat oven to 400F.

Peel and cut butternut squash into 2 cm pieces. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cut broccoli into 4 cm long pieces, place on prepared baking sheet. Chop the onion into large pieces and place on baking sheet. Any other "roastable" vegetable can be used here - carrots, beets, potatoes, etc. Drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, basil, rosemary, and anything else you think would be tasty. Stir vegetables to coat.

Place in oven, and bake for about 25 minutes or until tender, flipping vegetables over halfway through. You can also bake the remainder of the butternut squash at this time, but if you leave it in large pieces, it will have to bake for longer.

While the vegetables are in the oven, chop chard into 2 cm pieces. Sauté in a cast iron pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper, until wilted.

Grab a bowl, put in a scoop of rice, a ladle full of lentils, half the roasted vegetables, and half the chard. Repeat with second bowl.


Notes
This was delicious. I was reminded that we need to do vegetable medley dinners more often. We get a lot of produce with our food box delivery and I hate seeing portions of it go to waste each week. My husband was a big fan of this meal.

Other ideas for combinations:
Quinoa, beets, sweet potato, spinach
Quinoa, kale, carrots, potatoes
Rice, kidney beans, onion, carrots, jalapeno, cilantro, avocado
Rice, white beans, cabbage, onion, thyme
Millet, chickpeas, carrots, chard, onion (inspired by Vegan Richa)
.
.
.
The possibilities are endless!