Yummy Italian Style Pilaf

So I whipped this up with scampi tonight, it's my version of what one of the local natural grocers calls "Rice a Roma" but I didn't like paying $8.00 a lb for the stuff so I made up my own and substituted brown rice where they use arborio...

Jim's "Rice a Roma"

• 2 C Cooked brown rice
• 2 tsp Olive oil
• 1 tsp Garlic, minced
• .25 tsp Crushed red pepper
• 2 Tbl Oil packed sun dried tomatoes, minced
• Juice of .5 small lemon
• 2 Tbl Fresh basil chiffonade
• .5 C Pistachios, shelled

Add olive oil, garlic and crushed red pepper to a medium saute pan at room temperature

Turn up heat to medium high and slowly swirl the garlic & red pepper to flavor the oil

Once sizzling but before the garlic starts to brown, add the lemon juice & sun dried tomatoes

Add rice & warm through, about 2 minutes stirring to coat all rice with the oil & herb mix

Add chiffonade of basil and pistachios and combine

Serve

I have a substantial amount leftover and will use this for pork tenderloin crusted with fennel tomorrow. It was great with scampi, the local grocer had wild 16-20 shrimp on sale for $9.99 so since it is the birth weekend I treated myself to a half pound.

It's pretty tough eating on a budget