Sunday, Cilantro Rice & Roasted Farmer's Market Veggies

I love how Sunday Funday has gone from being young and reckless to not-so-young cooking and relaxing... Yesterday we took a stroll through the local farmer's market and found some gems! The veggies were beautiful so we had to grab a bunch of those, some homemade jellies full of fresh fruit and some stinky cheeses. Today was spent mostly cleaning earlier on and then a little relaxing, of course. I busted open my gruyere and Spanish wine infused cheese and yes.... a bottle of red. You can take the girl out of Sunday Funday but you can't take the Sunday Funday out of the girl! My favorite thing that I ate today was this cilantro rice, made from the fresh cilantro I found at the market!

Here are my farmer's market trophies, aren't they beautiful? I love knowing where my veggies are coming from... and I actually love that they go bad if you don't use them right away. I bought a stalk of broccoli from the supermarket once and it sat for about 3 months without changing color or anything...what kind of frankenstein devil potion was on it?! Sad truth is you really don't know what has been done to your produce when buying at a supermarket. I also found some amazing cheeses at the market, a gruyere and a Spanish wine infused goats milk cheese. Both amazing and both were nibbled on in the afternoon with my red wine. The jams were the jam, I could seriously take a spoon to them until I pass out from a sugar overdose. I bet these would be amazing on my shortbread thumbprint cookies!

This was right after coming home from the market. Lita is my little girl and in my other hand is the most giant portobello mushroom I have ever seen! I definitely used some of this shroom for my roasted veggies shown a little further below. But for right now, lets get to our cilantro rice! Cilantro rice is inspired by my latin roots. In Peru we make our Arroz con Pollo with this green cilantro rice and it is truly so so good and full of fresh flavor! 

Cilantro Rice
Servings: 4
Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, minced
• 1/2 small onion, rough chopped
• 2 garlic cloves 
• 1 cup jasmine rice
• 2-3 cups water
• 1 tsp Better than Bouillon- Chicken  
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt & Pepper 

P.S. how gorgeous is this cilantro?! :)

Directions:

• In your food processor or blender (behold my Magic Bullet!) add cilantro, onion, garlic, 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 cup water- blend for a couple of minutes and set aside. 

• In a medium sauce pan set to medium-high heat, drizzle olive oil and add your jasmine rice. Allow for the rice to toast for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. 
• Add cilantro mix to pan as well as the Better than Bouillon and an extra cup of water. 
• Allow for this to slow simmer. You will notice the liquid begin to soak up, taste the rice, if you like it "al dente" you probably won't have to add more water, but if you like your rice cooked through then you might need to add a little bit of water at a time until your desired texture is reached. 
• Once that happens, turn off the heat and stir in your 1/4 cup chopped cilantro and plate in a serving dish. Garnish with a couple cilantro leaves on top!

As for my veggies, I chose a few of them, I wanted to save the eggplant for an eggplant parm or something later in the week. This is my go-to way to season and roast veggies. It is so simple, but honestly, do you need to do much to amazingly fresh veggies?! I want to taste their true flavors and not smother them with other stuff. So I simply cut up my veggies, drop them in a mixing bowl, add olive oil to coat all the veggies, salt, pepper and some parmesan cheese. Thats it! 

Toss to coat everything and then lay them out on a cookie sheet. Try to get everything spread out, you don't want overlapping or else the veggies won't cook evenly. Place them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. I like my veggies fairly crisp so you can leave them longer if you like them softer. 

Dinner came out fabulous. Simple, clean flavors. Not much seasoning, just flavors from the earth. I paired these sides with a perfectly cooked steak on the grill made by my honey. We ate out on the porch, I love Florida winters.... 

As for now... I have a Pumpkin Chocolate Nut bread in the oven recipe: http://www.pursuitofyumminess.com/1/post/2013/12/pumpkin-chocolate-nut-bread.html and I believe I need to finish off my bottle of red. Happy Sunday everyone! And even happier Monday if you have the day off tomorrow :) 

xoxo