Everything Over Rice

-That's pretty much what I made for dinner. Chick peas, red peppers, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, spices...you get the idea. Served over rice with dried apricots and raisins, it made a nice meal along with a salad and grilled toast. It looked like I spent all day planning dinner. Shhh, no one needs to know it was tossed together in an hour.

The toasts were grilled in a cast iron pan with some olive oil. I served them with strained yoghurt and pomegranate molasses.

You Will Need:

For The Rice:
1 3/4 cups stock
1 cup Jasmine rice ( washed and rinsed)
2 tablespoons chopped dried apricots
2 tablespoons raisins

Bring stock and fruit to a boil, add rice. Cover, reduce heat to simmer and cook 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Let stand five minutes longer. Fluff with fork before serving.

4 tablespoons (plus more if needed later) olive oil
4 carrots, peeled, trimmed and chopped into very small pieces
2 onions, chopped fine
4 stalks celery, trimmed, scraped and chopped fine
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary (crumbled)
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Ground pepper
About ten black olives, chopped
1 tablespoon preserved lemon peel, chopped fine
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 red peppers, chopped
1/2 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
2 tins chickpeas, rinsed drained and as many skins removed as you can stand dealing with (it gets tedious)


In a large frying pan, heat about four tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat (it should cover the bottom of the pan with about 1/8 inch of oil). Add the carrots, onions and celery and cook for about ten minutes, stirring once ion a while. Add the spices and reduce heat to low. Cook until the onions are translucent and the carrots are very soft-nearly mush. Remove from pan and set aside. Add more oil if needed to pan and cook the red pepper, mushrooms, olives, lemon peel and chickpeas until the red pepper softens. Return the carrot/celery mixture to the pan and continue cooking until everything is warmed through. In the last few minutes, add the parsley and mix well. Toss with sunflower seeds before serving over rice.