This isn’t exactly beef-related except that I made the rice with beef stock, but it turned out so well, I figure it’s worth posting!
We had leftover basic rice in the fridge from last night, so I took some olive oil and half an onion. While the olive oil was heating up on medium-low heat, I chopped the onion coarsely. I let the onion cook for a couple minutes before adding the rice and a bit more olive oil to moisten the rice.
I put about a tablespoon of tamari in the middle of the dish along with a pinch of sugar. After mixing that in well I added some lovely chopped yellow squashes and some fresh green beans from our CSA. About a cup of chopped squash and a cup of green beans with the ends broken off and snapped in half again to make bite-sized pieces.
After that, I put some freshly ground black pepper and three dried and crumbled mint leaves on top. After mixing those in well, I chopped up some unsweetened, dried cranberries – about a handful – and added them, being sure to mix those in well also.
We had some hard-boiled eggs that I sliced and we ate those on the top as well.
It was amazingly good! I credit that partly to the beef stock used to make the rice. It always seems to make rice extra tasty. Oh, I’d also added some raw, frozen collards to the basic rice recipe which was a very nice addition, in my opinion.
Phred loved it and so did I. Our 4.5 year old ate all of hers and asked for seconds. Our 2.5 year old ate most of hers. We didn’t have any other guests over, but this is certainly a dish I would feel comfortable serving to friends or family should the occasion arise.
The moral of this story is to experiment with spices and herbs! You never know when you’ll end up with a culinary masterpiece in your kitchen that would otherwise have gone undiscovered.
~B.
How to Eat a Side of Beef 
Not sure I’ll use beef stock but love the idea of adding CSA pickings like squash, collards and mint to the rice.
sounds great!
Thank you both!
When making grains I use whatever sort of stock or broth I have available and I’m sure this would be great with chicken or vegetable stock/broth also. I save all the inedible ends from my CSA veggies in a freezer bag and make veggie broth if I get too many and don’t have any or enough bones to add. This would be a very easy meal to make vegetarian or even vegan if you made some sort of bean/legume to go with it instead of the eggs 🙂