Every Friday a nice young man from Westside Organics shows up at my door with a box of fresh and (mostly) local organic produce. Yesterday he brought sugar snap peas and zucchini, along with strawberries, white peaches, apricots, apples, bananas, an avocado, a lemon, spinach, and a mango.
I didn't have much time to spend cooking tonight, and the kids just wanted pasta with butter. I know that is a horrible supper, but I let them slide since they usually eat healthier because I was lazy.
I can't eat pasta with butter, so I made brown rice with zucchini and peas.
Ingredients!
- brown rice (I use the frozen already cooked kind from Trader Joe's because sometimes I don't want to wait 40 minutes for brown rice)
- 3 or 4 zucchini
- sugar snap peas
- olive oil
- tamari
- sesame oil
- salt & pepper
I washed and stemmed the peas and put them in a bowl.
Then I washed the zucchini, cut off the ends, and sliced them lengthwise. I brushed a baking sheet with olive oil, set the strips in a single layer, and then brushed them with more olive oil and sprinkled them with salt. I put them in a 350 degree oven (probably could have been hotter) and set the timer for 15 minutes.
While the zucchini cooked, I got the pasta going and set out a skillet (a wok would be better) for the peas. When the 15 minutes were up, I turned the zucchini slices over and put them back in the oven for ten more minutes.
Then I started the peas. Just heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil on high heat (watch out for the splat factor), add the peas and stir fry until they are shiny green. Maybe until they start to brown, if you like. When they are finished, put them in a bowl (I use a spatula instead of just pouring them all in so I don't end up with too much oil), and drizzle 2 tablespoons tamari and 1 teaspoon (I probably used three times that, though) sesame oil over the top. Then I just mixed it up with the brown rice, which I doused in tamari and sesame oil.
It desperately needed some red; if I could have a do-over, I'd add red bell peppers (stir fried) or tomatoes (roasted with the zucchini). Red pepper flakes would have looked nice, too, but I wasn't feeling the hot.
The kids ate their pasta. I tried to feed them some veggies, but they were having none of it. That's okay. More for the grown-ups.