Vegetable and Mixed Rice Casserole

I am perhaps not as great a cook as the lovely and talented Kim.  She can make up recipes in her head based on whatever scraps happen to be in the kitchen (“somethin’ outta nuthin’”).  She can jump right in to a new recipe with no problem.  Me — the first few times I try a new recipe, it ends up burnt or mushy or undercooked or bland or otherwise off.  It takes quite a bit of practice for me to get proficient at a given recipe.  “Winging it” is right out.

Given that, I tend to be pretty good at bread (if I do say so myself) and there are a few recipes I have collected over the years that I like to pride myself in.  In fact, I used to have several of them posted here on the site — but that was when it was built with a mishmash of PHP, HTML, server-side includes, and a dash of XML/XSLT — before I switched to WordPress.  With the weather getting colder, I thought I would pull out my old veggie casserole recipe, but I could not find it anywhere on the site.  I dredged it out of an old CVS repository, and will now (re-)post it here — partly to share it with the world again and partly so I can easily find it again in the future.

It's more “comfort” than “gourmet”

Vegetable and Mixed Rice Casserole

This particular recipe has been spliced together from two or three casserole recipes, then slowly hand-tweaked over time.

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 cups diced mushrooms (previously: 1 “blue styrafoam container thingey” diced mushrooms, but I buy them loose these days)
  • 1 very small zucchini, diced
  • 1 medium-to-large onion, diced
  • 1-2 green bell peppers, diced
  • 1-2 red bell peppers, diced
  • 2+ teaspoons thyme leaves
  • two 6-ounce packages long grain & wild rice cooked, with spice packet
  • 2 cans black beans, rinsed, drained
  • 2 cups frozen whole-kernel corn
  • one 3.8oz can sliced black olives
  • 1 container small tomatoes: grape, cherry, or tear-drop
  • 2-3 small broccoli heads, sliced into small bite-size pieces
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
  • salt and pepper
  • A little bit of olive oil, butter, cooking spray, or otherwise

Equipment:

  • 13×9 casserole dish

Directions:

  • Put oil/butter/spray in large skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium flame until hot. Add mushrooms, zucchini, onion, bell peppers, thyme, and broccoli. Cook, covered, over medium heat, until vegetables are tender, 8-10 minutes.
  • In a large bowl, combine rice, cooked vegetable mixture, beans, corn, sour cream, olives, tomatoes, and half of the cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spoon it unto the casserole dish, sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
  • Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees, 45-50 minutes.
Posted in: Food

Published by

Brian Enigma

Brian Enigma is a Portlander, manipulator of atoms & bits, minor-league blogger, and all-around great guy. He typically writes about the interesting “maker” projects he's working on, but sometimes veers off into puzzles, software, games, local news, and current events.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *