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Mediterranean stir-fry vegetables with rice and Parmigiano

Heya.
It's cooking bearkitty  Ghosty and here's a bit more for you vegetable lovers and vegetarians out there :3
I might not be a vegetarian, but I just love veggie food ^_^
It's tasty, easy to prepare and additionally, all the ingredients only cost a few bucks all together, making it a good dish for the end of the month. We all know how that feels. ^.^'
And of course something for the spring, giving you the fresh and honest taste of the Mediterranean cuisine with lots of fresh herbs.
So let's get started...

Ingredients:

You can take every vegetable you like, but I settled for:

- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 small Zucchini
- 1/2 Florence fennel
- 3-4 chestnut mushrooms
- 6-7 cherry tomatoes
- 1 big carrot
- 5-6 broccoli florets (I did use frozen broccoli, because it's easy to just take a few florets and use them. Just plain frozen broccoli, not spiced or otherwise prepared one)
- 6-8 Black olives (make sure to get ripe, black ones .. not "blackened". If the ingredients tell you something about "Iron(II) gluconate", don't use them. They are not unhealthy at all, but the just don't taste very good, compared to real ripe olives. I used Kalamata olives, which are ripe as well, but have more of a purple-reddish color).
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 shallot
- 1-2 green onions
- fresh Mediterranean herbs. I used a twig of rosemary, a few twigs of thyme, oregano, one large leaf of sage and two different varieties of basil (the classic green one and a more intense reddish variant).
- Approx. 125g rice (I used Basmati rice, but any rice will do)
- Parmigiano
- salt, pepper, bit of chili if you like
- olive oil
- butter
- (Optional: a dash of white wine)

Preparation:

Do some Mis en place. It will make cooking much easier of you have everything prepared in advance and you can just take everything when you need it.
This dish is quick to cook, but if you don't have your stuff ready, the veggies get too soft and you don't want that.
Doesn't have to be fancy. Might just look as unprofessional as this here: https://ghostbear.kur.ai/fotos/esse.....ce_veggies.jpg
(And yes, the fennel is missing ^.^' I forgot about it and cut it up 2 minutes after I took the photo, before I started cooking)

Peel shallot, green onions and garlic. Chop the garlic very finely, the onion into small cubes and the green onion into rings. Keep some of the green parts for later.
Wash all the other vegetables, peel the carrot, then cut the carrot into Julienne, the bell pepper into strips, fennel into thin slices. Quarter the zucchini, then cut it into slices as well. Slice the tomatoes into halves, then removed the watery seeds, as they don't offer much taste.
Cut the mushrooms into big chunks and the olives into halves.
A little kitchen trick for removing the stone of the olives, as it's a bit difficult to remove without ripping apart the olive: Place the olive on your cutting board, cut them open lengthwise on one side, then gently press down with the flat side of your kitchen knife without too much pressure to loosen the stone from the flesh. You can then easily remove the stone.
Still with me? Yeah, you almost made it :3 Just chop up the herbs and keep thyme, sage and rosemary apart from the rest.
All three herbs require heat to develop their full taste, so we put them in earlier. Basil and oregano are best used without applying too much heat, so those will be put in at the end of the cooking time.

Heat up olive oil and a bit of butter in a large pan and heat up approx 1,5L water for the rice.
The rice will take about 10 minutes to simmer, so you can start cooking the rice once the onions are done. Simmer the rice in salted water, pour off the water, cover it it again and let it sit for about 5-7 minutes in the pot but without heat. That way you'll get a nice, dry rice that will stick a bit without being mushy, but will separate into individual rice grains easily.

Once the butter is melted, put the shallot and green onion into the pan and sweat it until glassy. You can add rosemary, thyme and sage at this stage. Make sure not to burn them, but they can take some heat.
When the onions are done, add the vegetables one by one, according to their cooking time and fry them until they are almost done. Start with the carrots as they will take the longest, then add fennel (the only veggie that has to get a little softer than the others), bell pepper, broccoli, zucchini. You can add the garlic now or a bit earlier, just make doubly sure not to burn it. Burned garlic tastes horribly bitter.
Season to your taste.
Add olives, mushrooms, tomatoes and the remaining green onion rolls (from the green part of the spring onion). Now pour in a little water, a little dash of white wine, broth or stock, cover your pan, turn down the heat and just let it gently steam until the tomatoes are soft and the mushrooms have shrunken down a little.
Your rice should be ready by now as well.
Gently mix in the fresh basil and oregano, then serve with rice and maybe a nice salad.
Top your dish with some more basil and freshly shaved Parmigiano.

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Allergy warning – please read all recipes carefully and be aware of any allergies or sensitivities that may affect your health and well-being