Rustic Rice with Oven Grilled Vegetables

Today its raining since morning, a cold and wet day feel like cooking something more earthy and rural. I am planning for a brown rice recipe which is considered to be more healthy yet rustic. In much of Asia, brown rice is associated with poverty and wartime shortages, and in the past was rarely eaten except by the sick and the elderly because as it has high fiber content. This traditionally denigrated kind of rice is often now more expensive than common white rice, partly due to its relatively low supply and difficulty of storage and transport. I am making a herb brown rice and layering it with boiled potato tossed in homemade pesto sauce. Serving it with some low fat oven grilled vegetables.

Ingredient:

Brown rice:                 1 cup (soak in water for 1 hr)
Spring onion:               2 medium long stems
Potato:                        1 large
Fresh Basil
Fresh Parsley
Parmesan cheese:        2 table spoon
Pine nuts:                     2 table spoon
Olive Oil
Garlic:                          4 large cloves
Garlic powder:             1/2 tea spoon
Butter:                         1 tea spoon
Lemon Juice
Seasonal Vegetables:    2 cups cut in medium size chunks (I an using beans, broccoli, onion, eggplant, carrot & capsicum)   
Kosher salt to taste
White pepper

Method:
1) Wash and dry all cut seasonal vegetables. Add salt, pepper, 1 table spoon olive oil, 1 tsp butter, garlic powder and 4 table spoon finely chopped parsley and basil leaves. Mix well and grill it for 20-25 minutes turning the vegetable twice in between. Keep it hot.
2) Peel a large potato and slice it. Boil it till fully cooked.
3) For pesto sauce, grind together 1 cup fresh basil,  2 table spoon parmesan, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 garlic cloves and 1 table spoon lightly roasted pine nuts.
4) Toss the boiled potato slices in pesto sauce and season it with salt and pepper. Set aside
5) For herb brown rice, heat some olive oil in a pan and add 1 table spoon minced garlic. Add finely chopped spring onion. Toss it for a minute and add the rice. Pour 4 cups of water and season it with salt. let it cook until the water run dry and rice is well cooked. Turn off the heat and mix 1 cup of finely fresh basil and parsley leafs. Season it with white pepper. Mix well and cover it for 2 minutes.
6) To assemble use a bowl or a mould put some rice at the bottom then layer it with pesto potato in between and again cover it with rice. Take out the mould and top it up with grilled vegetable and sprinkle some lemon juice.

BON APPETIT..