So good rice dish...

2 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 hot peppers, minced
1 onion, minced
1 pack of fresh mushrooms, sliced in half
1 can stewed tomatoes, drained
1 can black olives, drained
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 can black beans, drained and rinced
1/2 cup red wine
at least 3 tbsp pecorino romano cheese
3 tsp rosemary
pepper to taste
1/2 to 1 tbsp olive/rosemary seasoning*
1 cup dry brown rice, cooked

Fry garlic, peppers, and onions in a large pan for a few minutes. Add mushrooms and fry until the juices start to go loose. Add stewed tomatoes, olives, corn, black beans, and wine, and simmer for a few minutes, but not beyond the desired "cookedness" of the ingredients added thus far. I like to have the mushrooms still have a bit of their initial crunch. At this point, thoroughly drain all the juices from the dish into the pan you have been cooking it in, and set the solids aside. Make sure that you really have all the juices in the pan and that they are not collecting at the bottom of the dish of solids you have set aside. Now add the romano, rosemary, pepper, and olive/rosemary seasoning to the liquid and simmer for a really long time until it has become such a thick gravy that you can't imagine it settling at the bottom of the dish, but rather sticking evenly to everything.

If the rice you've cooked is dry:

Just stir the gravy and the rice into the dish and you're done.

If the rice you've cooked is too moist,

Stir the gravy into the dish, fry the rice for a little bit, and then add that too.

Why? Because you don't want the rice to just be a contribution to an overall mushy consistency that shouldn't be there in the first taste. They should add a consistency and taste of their own.


*About the Olive/Rosemary Seasoning: You could fly to South Africa to get some... or imitate it by mixing some of the following ingredients. Its worth making and having on hand for this any many other dishes, even though some of the ingredients are a little less easy to find. We use it on everything... to top boiled eggs or cottage cheese... but it has many other functions. Its sooo good. Here are the ingredients in the order listed on the bottle:

Sea salt, Bread-crumbs, Sun-dried olives, Rosemary, Garlic, Cane sugar, Dried Lemon, Flavourants (too bad), Herbs (what herbs?), Andti-caking Agent (too bad again), and Spices (what spices?)

So as you see there is a lot of guess work to do to imitate this... so you're better off flying to South Africa to buy some. Its worth it. But wait! I just found a place you can buy it online!!! Click here! That's exciting... I thought we'd be done with it for good until the next time we went to South Africa. They've got a bunch of other grocery items there also that are making me miss my home!