Chunky vegetable rice

Warm and filling with a really homely flavour and texture this chunky vegetable rice is one of my favourite meals and really easy to make.

Start by popping approximately 100g of rice of your choice on to cook. Brown rice has much higher levels of fibre, minerals and also a slower rate of absorption making it more filling. Often I would use brown rice but today I’m using white rice because it’s hard to be well behaved all the time and sometimes it is nice to indulge in naughty carbs especially because as a coeliac there are not that many naughty carbs you can indulge in! Cook the rice until it is ready to eat.

While the rice is cooking it is time to get stuck into the vegetables. You can mix and match the vegetables in this recipe to your taste or even alternatively to what you have in the house but I love it with a simple combination of onion, carrot, sweetcorn and tomato.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan on a high heat and add a finely chopped onion and allow to cook for a couple of minutes. Then add roughly diced carrots so they can begin to cook through as well. I use 5 medium sized carrots which I peel before chopping into small pieces. Continue to cook the carrots and onion for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes I add sweetcorn, a large chopped vine tomato and a Kallo vegetable stock cube and turn the heat down to a medium setting. The stock cube will start to dissolve and coat the vegetables and the liquid from the tomatoes will make the lightest sauce with the stock and the other vegetables. Add some black pepper and a small amount of herbs for seasoning (I use rosemary, I always use rosemary, I grow it in my garden and it is one of my favourite flavours ever).

Drain the cooked rice and then add to the pan with the vegetable and stock combination. Cook for a further 10 minutes and the rice will become golden and take on all the beautiful vegetable flavours.

Serve straight away and enjoy another hearty, vegan, coeliac meal which makes me feel fantastic.