The Big Blog

Yesterday I thought I?d go vegetarian for the day as I?d eaten plenty of stodgy food over the weekend and felt in need of a bit of a detox from meat and fast food. Breakfast was cereal as usual, and for lunch I had fresh Tomato & Basil soup which I bought from Sainsbury?s which was delicious and a snip at just £1 for a big pot (which I finished), and then for dinner I had Mexican rice and bean casserole.

I got the recipe for the casserole from the BBC recipes site and I?m shamelessly going to put it up here as it was delicious too.

Ingredients

• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 125ml/4fl oz water
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 110g/4oz mushrooms, sliced
• 2 green peppers, chopped
• 125g/5oz long-grain rice
• 1 can (796g/28oz) red kidney beans drained
• 1 can (540g/19oz) tomatoes
• 1 tbsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp cumin
• a pinch cayenne pepper
• 110g/4oz grated low-fat mozzarella cheese

Method

1. In large saucepan, heat oil with water over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, mushrooms and green peppers; simmer, stirring often, until onion is tender, about 10 minutes.
2. Add rice, beans, tomatoes, chilli powder, cumin and cayenne; cover and simmer for about 25 minutes or until rice is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.
3. Transfer to baking dish and sprinkle with cheese. Bake in 18OC/350F/Gas 4 oven for 15 minutes or microwave at high (100%) power for 1 to 2 minutes or until cheese melts.

The benefits were that it was very cheap, tasted great, and was really easy to make as it was all simple ingredients. The recipe above is meant to serve six so I cut down on the rice and beans and peppers, but found that I still had to use a whole tin of tomatoes so that the rice would cook thoroughly and not dry out. A great meal to get stuck into and one that doesn?t need meat to be a success.