Vegetable Rice With Vermicelli

• Total Time: 1 hrs
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 8

• 1 ½ cups uncooked long grain rice
• 80 pieces thin spaghetti , broken into 1/2 inch pieces, smaller if desired
• 3 tablespoons butter or 3 tablespoons margarine or 3 tablespoons vegan margarine
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion , chopped fine
• 5 baby carrots , chopped fine
• 2 celery ribs , trimmed and chopped fine
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups water
• 2 chicken bouillon cubes (or vegetable)
• 1 -2 bay leaf

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. First you will need to get out a 3 or 4 quart casserole or baking dish that has a lid.
3. Take 1 of the 3 tablespoons of butter, and rub it along the inside of your dish.
4. Add uncooked rice and set aside.
5. In a pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter, and add spaghetti pieces and toss occasionally until nice and brown.
6. Do not burn them!
7. but allow them to get nice and brown; Add to rice.
8. In same pan, add olive oil, and heat over medium high heat.
9. Add onion, carrot, and celery to pan and saute for approx 7-8 minutes until all are slightly tender.
10. Add mixture to dish with rice and vermicelli.
11. Put vegetable broth and water in a saucepan and heat until slightly boiling.
12. Add bouillon cubes and turn down heat, stirring until cubes dissolve completely.
13. Pour broth mixture over rice and vegetables and stir through.
14. Add bay leaf.
15. Cover with lid, and put in your preheated oven.
16. You will need to cook this approximately 40-55 minutes, depending on your oven.
17. (I say this, because when I came up with this dish I was at school and it took 50-55 minutes and here at home it took about 45 minutes) Please watch after 40 minutes.
18. Broth will absorb and rice should be soft.
19. Remove from oven and let sit, covered for 15 minutes.
20. Remove lid, and remove bay leaves.
21. Serve!

Reviews

[Charishma_Ramchandani]

"Comfort heaven in a bowl for rice lovers" is what I would call this. The aroma and presentation of this makes you want to eat it even more;) I halved this recipe and made it for lunch this afternoon. I did use Sunflower cooking oil wherever oil was called for. I used 1/4 cup of vermicelli. As for water, I used 2 cups(since I felt the rice required 3 cups water+broth in total to cook since it also had veggies in it). I used 1 cube of Maggi vegetable broth with onions where the boullion cube was called for. This rice took exactly 40 minutes to cook in my pre-heated oven on CONVEC mode. I had pre-heated my oven to 180C and I cooked this at 180C for 40 minutes. I garnished this with some fresh finely chopped parsley - it gave a beautiful hint of green colour as well as its fantastic flavour to this dish. My kitchen and my living-cum-dining room smelt like we were in rice paradise! I love this rice and so does my mom. Thank you so much for an incredible unique rice recipe. I call it "unique" because this is the first time, I think, that I am using vermicelli in a rice recipe to make a rice dish. Normally, I use vermicelli to make vermicelli pudding. So, this was something special and went very well at my home! Thanks again for sharing! This is one rice dish I will repeat quite often!

[Susan Lee]

Very delicious side dish! Very much like Rice A Roni in the oven, only much healthier.I made the recipe exactly as stated but omitted the celery - as I don't allow it in the house! Next time I think I will add some mushrooms and red peppers. Thank you so much for sharing this versatile recipe. Try this one!

[Kittencalskitchen]

Hi there Love4...I made your Vegetable Rice with vermicelli, it was FANTASTIC! I tryed not to burn the spaghetti pieces (after reading Sharon's review). I had veggie broth in my cupboard that had been there for a while, and I wanted to use it up. I made it just as stated, only I added some chopped garlic with the butter with step 5 (gotta have the garlic... DH just goes crazy for garlic..he even eats it raw...yuck!...so I add garlic to almost everything) I like the idea of baking rice, I think it inhances the flavor some how. We just love rice at our house, I am always looking for new and exciting rice recipes, and this is sure one of them ... This was just yummy, my family loved it. Thanks Love4 for a wonderful rice dish...I will be making this again soon, this is a real winner. Keep up the great work...love your recipes! :-)