Happy & Healthy
6X WHAT TO DO WITH RICE LEFTOVERS
I can cook a pot quite well, but one thing frustrates me enormously: rice. It's overcooked, too hard, sticky, too dry, but above all always WAY TOO MUCH.
I don't know how it is for you, but I cook rice for an orphanage. And if there's one thing I absolutely hate, it's throwing away food. I can't do it. So what do you do: incorporate it everywhere. This works very well with rice. How, you might be wondering. Well, just like this:
1. In your soup
Are you craving soup, but would you also like something to chew on? Throw a few spoons of rice into your soup and you get a huge filler. A good spicy curry soup? Match made in heaven.
2. Sushi in a bowl
Are you broke or don't feel like spending hours in the kitchen, but want sushi now? Make sushi in a bowl. Fill a bowl with rice, top it with fish, avocado, spring onion, pieces of seaweed, and a dressing of soy sauce, and plop down on the couch with your super comfy bowl.
3. Rice pudding
Put the rice in a saucepan and add (plant-based) milk until the rice is well submerged. Slowly bring to a boil and then lower the heat. Add a generous pinch (and another pinch) of cinnamon, a handful of raisins, and two tablespoons of maple syrup. If you like it sweet, add a little extra.
“Bet you’ll accidentally on purpose throw that whole pack in the pot tonight?”
4. Arancini
The Italian bitterball. Okay, now I'm probably going to get into trouble with the Italian Amayzers among us, because technically you make this with risotto. But hey, we're talking about rice, so we'll take rice.
Put the rice in a saucepan and add broth until the rice is just covered. Let it cook until all the broth is absorbed and a sticky rice forms. Sauté an onion with some garlic and add that to the rice. Add Parmesan cheese to the rice mixture and mix well. Cut a ball of mozzarella into small pieces. Take two plates, one with a beaten egg and one with breadcrumbs. Take a full tablespoon of rice, roll it in your hands into a ball the size of a bitterball, and push a piece of mozzarella in the middle. Roll the ball first through the egg mixture and then through the breadcrumbs. Fry the balls in a layer of oil.
5. Stuffed peppers
Do you know them? I find them very old school. I used to love my mother's stuffed peppers. She filled them with spiced minced meat and sprinkled the pepper with aged cheese. A spoonful of sour cream on the side... Okay, I'll stop.
Sauté an onion in the pan along with a clove of garlic. Cut a zucchini into cubes and mix it into the onion mixture. Add a pinch of salt, fresh parsley, a teaspoon of smoked paprika, and freshly ground pepper and mix well. Take a can of tomato paste and add that to the rice. Cut off the top part of the pepper and clean them out. Fill the peppers with the rice mixture and top with goat cheese (or another cheese). Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake for thirty minutes until done.
6. Rice breakfast
Take a cup of cooked rice. Combine that with 100 ml of rice milk in a saucepan and slowly bring it to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and let the rice absorb all the milk. Add a tablespoon of flaxseed and mix it into the rice. Put the rice in a bowl, along with some banana slices and a tablespoon of grated coconut. Drizzle with some honey.
Bet you’ll accidentally on purpose throw that whole pack in the pot tonight? Ha. Oops.
