Garden Veggies over Rice

Brownie likes to create beautiful food and play with flavors.  I tend to be more practical and rely on the foods I grew up eating.  I have a deep love for zucchini and this week, we had THREE zucchini ripen in the garden.  Two yellow and one green.  We also had two beautiful tomatoes ready to eat.  So tonight, I took over dinner duty.  

Now, when I cook, you can bet it's going to be something simple.  Every time my mother and I went to a potluck of any kind, my vegetarian mother would bring this dish with us and people would absolutely devour it.  It was one of the first things she taught me to cook as a teenager.  I still love it.

So in the spirit of sharing actual recipes, I will write down what I used and how I put this together.

Ingredients:

• 3 Medium Zucchini (or a mix of zucchini and yellow squash)
• 1 Large Scallion (Or onion, whatever is on hand)
• 3 Medium-to-large Tomatoes
• Basil (dried or fresh - either way)
• Garlic
• Salt
• Olive Oil
• Cooked Rice

Direcitons:

• I cook rice ahead of time and when my rice cooker beeps, I start the veggies and let the rice warm.
• Heat olive oil in a saute pan and begin cooking Scallion and freshly minced garlic - whatever your tastes are!  I use a LOT of garlic, we love the flavor.
• Chop Zucchini to desired size and put in the pan with garlic and scallion.
• Toss and add salt to taste
• Chop fresh basil and tomatoes while you're waiting for the zucchini to soften.
• Stir your zucchini or toss it in the pan every so often - don't neglect it or it will cook unevenly.
• If you're using dried basil, add it at this point so it has time to re-hydrate
• When they start to soften, I throw in the fresh basil and toss with veggies.
• When they're the texture you prefer, turn the heat off and stir in your chopped tomatoes so they can warm with everything else.  You don't want to COOK the tomatoes, just warm them.
• Scoop some rice into a bowl and add veggies on top!

You'll notice your veggies are a bit watery in the bottom of the pan - that juicy goodness is DIVINE scooped over your rice!  I love to eat this all stirred together in a big mashy mess - it's perfection!

This time around, I decided to use some of our freshly harvested Nasturtium leaves as well.  They have a peppery, radish-y flavor that I wanted to play with.  I didn't really use enough to flavor much, but when I got some in a bite, I could definitely tell they were there and they were a nice addition.  Not always available, but if you want to try them ... it does work with this recipe pretty well.

Enjoy the summer veggies while they last!  As usual, if you try this and put your own spin on it, we'd love to see what you come up with!  Come back and post pictures for us! :-)