Rice and Vegetable Dish

This was dinner a couple of nights ago.  I had been wanting to make rice and add a variety of vegetables to it.  I made this up and it really turned out great.  I'm going to do some perfecting of the recipe as I make changes I'll let you know.  But the way it is now is really good and easy to make.  This is what I did:

1 bunch of green onions, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup of Basmati rice
1 zucchini, diced
1 yellow squash, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1 to 1 1/2 cups of frozen peas, thawed
4 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of sunflower oil

In a soup pot I put 2 tablespoons of butter and sautéed the onions and garlic for 3 minutes then I added the Basmati rice and cooked it in this mixture for about 2 minutes and then I added 2 1/2 cups of water.  Bring the rice to a boil, lower the heat, put on a tight lid and cook for about 40 minutes not lifting the lid until the rice is cooked.  Turn off the heat and let the rice sit for about 5 minutes.  Take off the lid and fluff with a fork. 

While the rice is cooking, cut and saute all of your vegetables in 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil until crisp tender.  Then add to your rice and mix well.

I had some chicken strips that I had baked and I cut them in chunks and added them to this mixture.  Shrimp would also be good in this.  This is wonderful by itself without any meat.  We had this with a Caesar salad and it made a wonderful dinner.

You could also add a little soy sauce and give it a more Asian flare but I was out of soy sauce.