Carmelized Onion and Pine Nuts over Basmati Rice

Kosheri (Vegetarian Resource Group has a nice article on Egyptian vegan food, including a recipe for kosheri), a layered rice-lentil-carmelized onion-spicy tomato sauce dish, is a food that I loved being introduced to when I visited Cairo a few years ago. I even went to a restaurant or two that specialized and made nothing but kosheri.

I wanted to put a quick meal together tonight and, vaguely inspired by kosheri, made a simpler rice dish. (I do want to try making kosheri sometime!) I cooked basmati rice in vegetable broth while deeply browning onions, carmelizing them nicely.

My Mom gave me an interesting long spoon-like small pan a few days ago; it has a long handle ending in a metal "mini-pan" that is about 4" in diameter and 2" deep, and that has a copper coating on the underside where it can be heated. I was anxious to try it for browning pine nuts, and did just that. It works great, and the nuts brown very quickly! I served the browned pine nuts atop the rice.

I also served leftover seitan with mushrooms and roasted tomatoes and heirloom tomato and radish. Finally, I broke open a can of stuffed grape leaves to round out the meal.