Dirty brown rice with shrimp

Tonight's meal was one I found while looking for something to do with shrimp. I haven't had shrimp for a while and I have to say I'm very pleased I found this. I will be cooking this often as it has become one of my new favorite meals. The recipe is another one Gina Homolka put on her website, Skinnytaste, and it can be found here.

Review: This meal is extremely healthy, which is a plus, and doesn't take that long to cook. If you were to precut the vegetables it'd take about 20-30 minutes. If you wait to cut the vegetables until you are ready to fix the meal it might take closer to 30-45 minutes. Still, not too long either way. I'm proud of myself because it's the first time I've successfully cooked brown rice. All the other times I've attempted brown rice it's stayed kind of hard. I think the trick was cooking it a little longer. Generally with white rice you boil the water, pour in the rice then remove it from the heat to finish cooking. With brown rice you boil the water, then cook it for another 5 minutes or so and then remove it from the heat. The flavor combinations also worked extremely well together but know that the meal is quite hot. There is quite a bit of cayenne pepper in it so that makes it spicy. If you don't like spicy foods you could leave the cayenne pepper out but if you don't mind it this is the dish for you. No joke, I was sweating a bit as I was eating this meal. I also had never used bay leaves before so it was nice to use a new ingredient and one that tasted pretty good. Now, the picture on the website shows and the recipe calls for two whole bay leaves, divided, but when they are whole I don't see a big use for them because they don't really mix in the meal. They just stay on top and remain whole even as you stir everything together. When I make this again I will probably just do a couple shakes of crushed bay leaves so it spreads throughout the meal more. I also forgot to get an onion so I used dried minced onion but had I used fresh onion it would have given it additional flavor. On top of that, even though the recipe calls for the ingredients it does, you could add more color by including other vegetables such as red pepper and carrots. You also could throw in some broccoli if you wanted. To be honest, the vegetables don't matter that much and I might even double what the recipe calls for. The ingredients listed, though, are just darker so it gives it more of that "dirty" feel. Finally, in case you don't know, the recipe calls for two scallions, which are another name for green onions. Oh, also, before I cooked anything I cut the vegetables and mixed the onion, celery, green pepper and garlic in a bowl. That way they were already mixed together in one dish and I could just empty the bowl in the saucepan instead of having multiple dishes with the different vegetables. This meal is definitely a keeper though and had I not wanted to save some for later, one I would have had a couple bowls of for dinner.

Recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups uncooked brown rice (I made 3 cups of rice because I was serving three people and wanted extras for other meals)
• chicken bouillon cube (Knorr) (I was able to find the Knorr brand but if you can't any chicken bouillon cube will work)
• 2 bay leaves, divided (or use crushed if you want)
• 1/8 + 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, divided
• 1/8 + 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/8 + 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 onion, diced (minced onion is fine if you don't have any fresh onion or don't want/forget to buy some like I did)
• 2 celery, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 lb 96% lean ground beef (Laura's lean beef or whatever brand you can find)
• salt and fresh pepper, to taste
• 1 lb medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 scallions, chopped

Cook the brown rice according to the package directions in water. As the rice is cooking and simmering in the water, add the chicken bouillon cube, 1 bay leaf (or some shakes of the crushed bay leaves), 1/4 tsp and 1/8 tsp salt, cayenne, paprika and thyme (I used the 1/8 tsp amounts in the rice).

When the rice is almost finished cooking, heat a large, heavy saucepan on medium-low heat. Add the oil, onions, green pepper, celery, remaining bay leaf (or a couple more shakes of the crushed bay leaves) and garlic. Saute on medium-low heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the beef, salt, black pepper, remaining 1/4 tsp of cayenne and 1/2 tsp of paprika and thyme. Saute until browned, about 10-15 minutes. Add the shrimp, cover and cook for 5 more minutes (I didn't cover but instead mixed the ingredients sporadically during the 5 minutes).