• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 medium onion
• 4 – 5 cloves garlic
• 3 stalks celery
• 2 courgettes (call it zucchini if you prefer)
• 1 capsicum (any colour, but I suggest yellow or red)
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 Tbs oregano
• 2 Tbs chilli flakes
• 2 bay leaves
• vegetable stock
• a cup of red wine
• vegetarian burger patties
• 2 tins red kidney beans
• 1 tin cannellini beans
• 2 tins chopped tomato
• jalapeños (optional, to taste)

Get all your bits together.

Chop all the veges.

Add oil to pot, sauté onions, capsicum, celery, garlic, oregano, and (not pictured) add the remainder of chopped vegetables.

Crumble the vegetarian burger patties.

Add pattie crumbles to pot.

Add bay leaves, wine, beans, chilli flakes, cumin, and tomatoes. Stir well and bring to the simmer.

Simmer, stirring occasionally. The longer you can give it the better, I like to give it at least 90 minutes to 2 hours.

I like to serve with rice, cornbread, sour cream, and hot sauce (this recipe isn’t particularly hot, I usually make it for potluck dinners, and unfortunately not all of my friends like it hot).

Great on toast the next day. (Great on everything the next day. Mmm-hmm.)

I don’t want to oversell it, but while it’s incredibly easy to follow, this is also the best, most consistent, most delicious rice recipe I’ve ever found. In fact this rice recipe is so good I’ve had friends who’ve had my rice phone me and ask for the directions. No kidding.

• 1/2 cup of basmati rice.
• 1 cup of cold water.
• olive oil or butter.

You can easily increase the quantities, just make sure you measure everything and use precisely double the volume of water as rice, 250ml rice = 500ml water, 500ml rice = 1000ml water. Simple, just make sure you measure it accurately.

Rinse your rice very well under the tap – it’s easiest to do this by putting it in a sieve – drain well.

Heat oil or butter in a pot on the highest temperature setting on your stove, add rice and stir constantly while it sizzles, a touch of toasty brown on a few of the grains is the target, but go no further.

Pour in the water, stir well making sure no rice is stuck to the bottom or sides of the pot. If the pot was hot enough, and the rice sufficiently well sizzled, the water will start boiling very quickly.

Once the water is at a rolling boil, turn the heat down as low as possible (you want it to be barely on, in fact if you’re using a sufficiently heavy pot, you can remove it from the heat entirely), and put on the lid.

Now set a timer for 15 minutes and leave it alone.

Don’t take the lid off.

Don’t stir it.

Don’t even look at it.

Try to avoid even thinking about it.

You see, your sizzingly and boiling were really just a practical majick to entice kind hearted spirits into your pot, they do the job of the cooking and puffing up of the rice, and if you bother them, they’ll all run away.

After 15 minutes, the kind spirits will drink up all the water, and leave, you’ll find a bunch of little holes, that’s where the spirits were lying while they did their work.  Fluff the rice up with a fork so any excess moisture on the rice steams off.  Unless you cheated (or estimated, against my advice) your water & rice quantities, there will be no spare water in the bottom of the pot.

Your rice is now ready. Easy. Delicious.

[Note, this is essentially the same as the rice recipe I posted to this site in 2006, edited for style, as I realised that my rice recipe was kind of buried, and had a crap title, and referred to a more complete dish which included meat, so no longer suits me.]

One fresh sliced tomato, whisk an egg with some milk and a nicely aged sharp cheddar, a good grind of salt and pepper, now oven bake in a ramekin, on a high shelf, until golden brown. (Whisk it up nicely and it’ll rise a bit like a soufflé.)