Perfect and Fluffy Brown Rice with Fresh Veggies

Hey everybody, I'm Bobby Dean and welcome back to the Paula Dean Network

Today we are talking about rice. I am a carboaholic, I'll admit it

I love potatoes, I love french fries, I love rice. I really like Chinese food, so the connection for me is I love fried rice, pork fried rice

chicken fried rice, all those things. But, you know, you can't really eat those every day

So what I'd like to show you today is a perfect fluffy brown rice with vegetables

And this is something that you could eat more often and feel good about it. So we'll start with two cups of long grain brown rice

And we're going to do something that not everybody does, I don't think

But we're going to rinse it. We're going to rinse our rice and get any dust off of it or maybe just extra starchiness

It'll just come out fluffier and less sticky. So you might try this next time you're doing rice

So whenever I do rice at home, I usually choose brown rice because it's just more heart healthy and lower in cholesterol than a white rice

So I've rinsed and drained my two cups of rice, and we're going to add that to a pot of boiling water

This is 12 cups of water. This is going to cook a little bit differently

than how you maybe already do rice. We're going to cook this for 30 minutes

and then rinse and drain it again. Give it a stir. Cover it up, and in 30 minutes, that's going to be perfect

What we're going to do is make a cold, raw, fresh vegetable salad

I got an English cucumber a couple of scallions and a red bell pepper Also we gonna get get to for sort of the dressing for the vegetables we going to use black sesame seeds a little bit of

sesame oil, and some liquid amino. I'm also, you know, I told you I like the rice and I like the

Asian foods, and I also like soy sauce. And the liquid amino is a good substitute for soy sauce

It's a lot lower in sodium. So we're going to use half of our English cucumber

And you could do a couple of different things here. You could either slice it just really, really thin

and use it right on top as a garnish, or I think what I'm going to do, you know, like this

which is beautiful, if you've got a mandolin, it would be much easier to do than with a knife

and just lay it right on top as a garnish. Or if you wanted to, you could also dice it up

and mix it in with the rice, which I think is the way that I'm going to do it

Go ahead and dice the cucumber. And I'm using an English cucumber

Benefit to that is there's no seeds, which is nice, because I always get cucumber seeds stuck in my teeth

And I think that they have just a little bit more flavor. And you might wonder, why not saute these vegetables

cook them down a little bit? Number one, the crunch is going to be nice in the rice

And number two, I don't want to cook all the vitamins and the minerals and the good stuff out of them

So I think that raw is going to be the way to go with this. So I'm going to dice up my cucumbers, kind of just a rustic cut

If you wanted to add amame to this, you certainly could. Or if you wanted to use English peas, you could do that as well

Diced up carrots would be nice in this recipe. The great thing about cooking that my mom taught me really early on

was to do a recipe exactly as it's intended to be made the first time

And then after that, do whatever you'd like. There's no rules in the kitchen, and I certainly adhere to that

So the cucumber looks good to me. And the red bell pepper is going to be nice for the color Yellow bell pepper would be nice as well So this is obviously a very easy recipe

and most of my favorite recipes are very easy. But I love to get together and cook with my wife

You know, I grew up in a family, obviously, a long line of good cooks in the South

and we've always believed that, you've heard my mom say many times

that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and a lot of great conversations and interaction happen in the kitchen

And it's a skill that I'm really glad that my mom taught me

My mom taught me how to cook and how to clean up after myself

and those two things are absolutely invaluable. And they're also the reason that I didn't get married

until I was in my mid-40s, because I could cook and clean up after myself. All right, so we'll dice the red peppers

And again, I like kind of just a rough, rustic chop. They don't have to be super fine or precise

Anytime you see a lot of color on your plate, you're doing it right

All right, so bell pepper. How nice those two colors look together

And finally, we'll do the scallions. And I think I'll cut them on a little bit of a bias

If you don't know what I mean by on a bias, just basically, I mean, on an angle

All right. Now, add my two scallions to the peppers and the cucumber

Add a little bit of the amino that we were talking about

a couple of teaspoons. Now, the sesame oil is strong, so I'm just going to use one teaspoon of that

And we'll mix this together. Let that marry a little bit. That looks refreshing and very very good and that will be delicious mixed into our perfect fluffy brown rice

All right, so I've got some rice that's been cooking for 30 minutes. And it's perfect and fluffy, exactly as I had told you it would be

So let's bowl it up and see what this looks like. Didn't stick. That's good

That's a heaping, heaping helping rice. Now the veggies on top. That looks really, really nice

Now look how pretty that is. All right, now not only is this beautiful, fluffy, and perfect

it's a lot lower in fat and calories. We went from 378 calories to only 78 calories per serving

And you know what? This recipe costs less than $2 to make. Now, this is very, very light, healthy recipe

Eat a little bit of it, because I do like my butter

Oh, and I forgot my sesame seeds. Black sesame seeds right on top

Wow, that adds a lot, doesn't it? That looks great. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, so..

Mmm. Oh, boy, is that good. make this tonight. You'll thank me

If you wanted to, you could add some chicken or you could add some shrimp. This recipe you could really, really play with

and make it your own. Man, that's good. So if you like this recipe

you can find it and many, many more right here on the Paula Deen Network

So keep watching. Thank you