I made this at the beginning of the summer with a lebanese grilled chicken and it complimented the spicy meat really well. As much as I like potato salad, I think this is a lighter, healthier and more refreshing summer side dish. I sometimes just use leftover brown rice and other times I cook up a rice blend (Lundberg). It's important that the rice not be warm when you mix the ingredients, the heat will alter the taste and texture of all the vegetables. If I have a lot of the pilaf left over, I like to throw in a can of salmon or tuna and have it for lunch the next day.
3 cups of cooked brown rice or rice blend (tastes better if you cooked the rice in stock)
1 1/2 cups of your choice of finely diced crunchy vegetables (fennel, celery, red pepper, mild radish)
1/3 cup of red onion shallots or scallions
1/3 cup of sliced almonds (pecans are good too)
1/3 cup of dried cranberry
1/3 cup of your choice of finely diced fresh fruit (cherries, peach, apple)
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
juice of one orange
2-3 tbsp of olive oil
2-3 tbsp of seasoned rice vinegar (if you don't have any, use regular vinegar and add a few tsp of honey)
3 tbsp of mint
Directions: Blend all ingredients.
'Pilaf' means rice or at least rice dish. So 'rice pilaf' a redundancy. It is probably too late to stop the use of the phrase "rice Pilaf", but "Pilaf" would clearly be better. --- Nat, aren't you glad I read your blog.
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