Tag: fresh tomatoes

Categories
Side Dish

Prepare to paint the town red with a from-scratch Mexican rice

Merely calling this dish red rice doesn’t do it justice as far as all the flavor it possesses. With a combination of fresh vegetables cooked down into white rice, it’s easy to create a tomato-y, delicious side dish for your next Mexican food entree.
Merely calling this dish red rice doesn’t do it justice as far as all the flavor it possesses. With a combination of fresh vegetables cooked down into white rice, it’s easy to create a tomato-y, delicious side dish for your next Mexican food entree.

Sometimes, in reflecting on my childhood, I realize just what a weird kid I was.

I’ll forever be thankful that I had supportive parents who had a “go with the flow” attitude about my idiosyncracies.

One of those strange traits flashed in my mind recently, when I decided I wanted to make a Mexican-style rice as a side for dinner. I suddenly remembered back to eating Mexican food with my family at a locally owned kiosk at the mall. We would go every so often, and the food was great—especially the Mexican rice.

I got to a point where I stopped ordering an entree. I would just get a double side order of rice, and that would be my meal. I loved it. I’m sure my parents were wondering if I was switched at birth.

Weird or not, though, I still love rice, and especially the kinds you get a Mexican restaurant, so when I tried out the recipe I shared with you last week from TV chef Pati Jinich, I had to try one of her rice recipes, as well, to go with it.

You can find the original recipe on her website at https://patijinich.com/red-rice/. I added extra garlic in my version.

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Red Rice

Merely calling this dish red rice doesn’t do it justice as far as all the flavor it possesses. With a combination of fresh vegetables cooked down into white rice, it’s easy to create a tomato-y, delicious side dish for your next Mexican food entree.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Mexican
Keyword carrots, chicken broth, corn, fresh tomatoes, frozen carrots, frozen corn, frozen peas, garlic, Italian parsley, peas, pickled jalapenos, rice, vegetable broth, white rice

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ripe tomatoes quartered
  • 1 small white onion chopped
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
  • 3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
  • 2 cups white rice
  • 4 sprigs fresh Italian parsley chopped
  • 2-3 tablespoons pickled jalapeno slices
  • 3/4 cup carrots diced (fresh or frozen)
  • 1/2 cup peas fresh or frozen
  • 1/2 cup corn fresh or frozen

Instructions

  • Add the tomatoes, onion, garlic and salt to a food processor or blender, and blend it until the mixture is smooth.
  • Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a large liquid measuring cup.
  • Look at how much liquid is in the cup, and then measure out enough chicken broth in a separate measuring cup so that you’ll have four cups of total liquid. (Don’t mix them together yet.)
  • Heat the oil in a medium-sized pot over medium-high heat. Add the rice, and stir regularly, cooking for three or four minutes until the rice is a milky color. Pour in the reserved tomato mixture, and continue to stirring regularly, letting the rice absorb most of the liquid. This will take another three or four minutes.
  • Stir in the chicken broth, parsley, jalapenos, carrots, peas and corn, and stir to combine.
  • Cover the pot and cook for 15 minutes or until the rice is cooked through. (If it isn’t cooked through and there is no more liquid in the pot, add a few tablespoons of water, cover and let it cook for another three minutes or so.) Fluff with a fork, and serve.

This was the perfect side dish, and I loved the added veggies in this rice, too. It was a nice change of pace from the more standard types of Mexican rice. If you like more spice to your food, you could add even more jalapenos. This didn’t have much of a kick to it, but letting the sauce cook a bit with the rice really made the tomato flavors pop, which I really liked.

And my parents would have been proud to see me eating rice as a side dish instead of just an entree. Let’s just not talk about how I consumed the leftovers, OK?

This piece first appeared in print April 17, 2025.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Have dinner ‘tortellini’ figured out this week

Pesto chicken tortellini and asparagus uses some pre-made ingredients to allow quick cooking with fresh and colorful vegetables.
Pesto chicken tortellini and asparagus uses some pre-made ingredients to allow quick cooking with fresh and colorful vegetables.

Over the course of our marriage, Joey and I have developed a special ritual, where each of us tries to be the first one to ask, “What do you want to eat?” before every meal, as though the person who asks first is absolved from having to do any choosing.

I mean, the answer is nearly always, “I don’t know,” but we still try it every meal, every day, with very few exceptions.

He was a little shocked last week, then, when I said, “Hey, don’t worry about dinner tonight. I have an idea.”

I knew he was going to be stuck at the office late, so it gave me the perfect opportunity to try a new recipe and hopefully have it ready for him when he got home.

Well, let me tell you, it was a huge hit, and if you or someone you know is cultivating a vegetable garden this summer, this is a great recipe to try out.

This comes from the blog “Julia’s Album.” You can find the original at https://juliasalbum.com/one-pan-pesto-chicken-tortellini-and-veggies. I added garlic salt and more pesto to my version.

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Pesto Chicken Tortellini and Asparagus

Course Main Course
Keyword asparagus, basil pesto, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, tomatoes, tortellini

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 pound boneless chicken thighs or breasts cut into strips
  • garlic salt to taste
  • 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes drained and chopped, divided
  • 1 pound asparagus stalks cut in half
  • 3/4 cup basil pesto
  • 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes halved
  • 1 cup cheese tortellini fresh or frozen

Instructions

  • In a large skillet with a lid, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
  • Season the chicken with garlic salt and add it along with 1/4 cup of the sun-dried tomatoes to the pan, sauteing for about 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
  • Transfer the chicken and tomatoes to a plate, season the asparagus with garlic salt and add it to the pan (add a little more oil, if necessary). Also add the other 1/4-cup of sun-dried tomatoes.
  • Cook for another 10 minutes until the asparagus reaches your desired doneness (I like mine very tender, so I added about four tablespoons of water and put the lid on the skillet to steam cook it for a bit, too.)
  • While the asparagus cooks, cook the tortellini according to package directions and drain.
  • Remove the asparagus from the skillet, and cover it to keep it warm.
  • In the skillet, add the chicken, pesto and tomatoes. Stir continuously to allow the chicken to reheat and let the tomatoes release some juice.
  • Add in the tortellini and stir to combine.
  • Serve the chicken mixture along with a serving of the asparagus.

This had amazing flavor and was gorgeous on the plate. I also really liked that, while it looked complicated, it used enough pre-made ingredients that it was easy to put together. It was also awesome as leftovers later on, which I always appreciate about a recipe. 

Joey was extremely grateful to have dinner on the table when he got home and to not have to endure yet another discussion about what we wanted to eat.

The only problem is now that I’ve shown my ability to choose a meal, I have to be extra quick about being the first to ask Joey what he wants to eat. Otherwise, it may become my job every day, and I just don’t think I’m ready for that responsibility.

This piece first appeared in print on June 4, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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