As you know, I’m in an extreme clean-eating phase right now, prepping for contest. Thus, I can’t always cook or bake what I want. I’m okay with it, I’m staying strong and working hard—and I actually enjoy the food, even though it may be bland to some. Anyhow, I found a delicious recipe that fit my macros with some to spare—without skimping on flavor. I used brown rice instead of risotto or white rice. Chris had about three servings of this—he loved it and made me promise I would cook it again. Did I mention this is vegan?

The recipe I found here, was kind of intimidating. It was a lot of steps and different instructions for seemingly the same ingredients. However, I gave myself a good hour and next time I make it, it will take half the time. When I do something once, I learn quickly and usually adept the next time around. I learn by doing, just how I am. This recipe is extremely altered that I don’t even want to base it on that link, but that’s what inspired me. I can’t say I’m a genius, because I don’t come up with ways to make it better, I am just making do with ingredients I have (or don’t have). Alright, let’s get started.

• Prep Time: 25-45 minutes
• Cooking Time: 35 minutes
• Serves: 4 normal people (for us—fed me and Chris…3 servings)

Ingredients

• 1.5- 2 cups cooked brown rice
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 package brown mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary (use fresh if you can)
• as much garlic as you want (I used elephant garlic, so…A TON)
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups boiling water
• ½ cup dry white wine
• salt & pepper

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees F
• Cut your onion in half. Put one half to the side and leave one half on cutting board.
• Slice up your mushrooms and clean them. Put them into a hot-water-proof bowl and pour the boiling water on top.

• Turn to the half of the onion on your cutting board and dice it up into little pieces. Mince or cut your garlic here too. What better combination than this?

• Get a deep pot ready—one that can go into an oven. Heat the two tablespoons of oil in the pot on medium heat. Put the diced onions and garlic in. Cook for 8 minutes or until nice and soft. ENJOY THAT SMELL.

• Drain the steeping mushrooms but save the liquid!
• Push the onions in the pot to the side, turn on medium-high heat, and put the mushrooms in. Do not stir. Let them cook for 5 minutes and then turn them over, doing the same no-stirring and let cook on this side for 5 minutes. If a crust forms, that’s totally okay—kinda what you want.
• Add in the rosemary, stirring so it gets in the mushrooms and onions.

• Add in the brown rice and let cook for 4 minutes

• Turn the heat to high and add the white wine, vegetable broth, balsamic vinegar, and steeped mushroom liquid

• Mix around and get anything sticking to the pot up and off
• Mix in salt and pepper to taste

• Bring to a boil, put on a lid, and then put into the oven for 35 minutes.
• While the wonderful mixture is cooking, coat a pan with oil and start caramelizing the other half of the onion. Cut that onion in moon-slices and once oil is heated, put them in, and salt it. Do a low heat until the mixture is ready. Yum!

• Take the risotto mixture out and let sit for a few minutes. Now, see, I get kind of impulsive when I cook and don’t always take everything into consideration when I convert a recipe for my own needs. Sure, I cut the onions from 4 to 1, but did I cut down the vegetable broth? Of course not. So, I’m sure the liquid was supposed to soak into the rice and just have solids left. However, ours had plenty of the liquid left—and we liked it that way (we used the delicious stuff to cook stuff the next day)
• So, do it our way, use a spoon or some kind of utensil to scoop out the rice, onion, and mushroom mix out of the “soup.” Plate it and put the caramelized onions on top.

It looks like a lot of steps, but many of these steps take about 10 seconds. Please don’t be intimidated by this because it really is SO delicious. And easy once you get the handle of it. So it’s not exactly risotto because I use brown rice. However, this makes it healthier—a complex carbohydrate with plenty of fiber to keep you full and slowly digest and absorb into the blood stream. Let me know if you have any comments or questions. Use this recipe to stay hungry and fit!

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• Fresh Bell Pepper Stir Fry
• Mushroom Egg Tacos
• Stuffed Mushroom–Nom Style