Brown rice bowls

Where to begin? Being new to the blog world I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading other blogs. One of my favorites is Simply scratch she has inspired me to be more conscious of “processed” foods. In addition, I’m trying real hard to be more fit by working out and eating “better”. So yesterday I was going to work on my “blog” but first I was hungry so I thought I would make some “lunch”. I have noticed when I eat brown rice versus white rice I enjoy the texture more and feel fuller longer. So I decided to make a rice bowl. (I’ve been making and eating rice bowls for years). I had a packet of quick cooking brown rice, the boil in the bag variety. Now, I know, it’s NOT the same as the real thing, but it takes a lot less time to cook and it’s still brown rice which has many more nutrients than it’s white counterpart.

So I open the refrigerator and start pulling out ingredients to make lunch. Here’s what I found:

I had some cooked chicken that I chunked, shredded sharp cheddar cheese, a poblano pepper, fresh basil and flat leaf parsley, 3 small red tomatoes, 1 lime, chopped fresh jalapeño and crushed garlic ( one clove) and the brown rice and hot sauce.

I started by cooking the rice according to the package directions:

While that was cooking I started to “roast” my poblano pepper.
If you have a gas stove, roasting peppers are so EASY. I used to “roast” them in the oven but ever since I saw Marcella from “Mexican Made Easy” roast them on the stove top I’ve been doing it that way. In my opinion it is way faster and you have more control of the process.
It’s as easy as putting the pepper over the flame:

Occasionally flip it with a long handled tong.

Once it completely “charred”, turn off the heat and put the pepper in a plastic ziplock bag.

Let it “steep” for 5 minutes. Remove from the bag and place on a paper towel.

Then with another paper towel start peeling the charred outside crust from the pepper.

Once all the skin is gone, I took a knife and cut the very top of the pepper off, exposing the seed center. Just pull that out and toss it. There were a few seeds left inside the pepper that I left because I like a little heat. But if you only wanted flavor, just rinse them out before you chop it.

Just a friendly reminder when working with peppers. The seeds is where most of the heat is, but when handling ANY hot pepper, make sure you wash your hands well after handling and don’t touch your eyes or face.

Then I chopped up the roasted pepper.

I am kinda a gadget princess too…so you will see that I use this food chopper a lot. but it just is so fast and makes perfect squares of veggies and comes in two sizes. Here I am using the larger size. Later you will see me use the smaller size.

So using the chopper I chopped the onion, tomato, and jalapeño.