Easy rice and spinach casserole

I like one pot dishes, less cleaning up really appeals to me! So I came up with a dish that uses raw rice. The trick is to make sure the rice is covered with liquid throughout the cooking process. Because of this the rice needs to be on the bottom of the dish.

Rice and Spinach Casserole

Use a 9" x 12" oven safe (e.g. pyrex, anchor hocking) casserole dish

Pour in 1-1 1/2 cups of washed Basmati rice (you can use other rice, but Basmati has a ton of flavor) in a layer on the bottom of the casserole dish, pour 2-3 cups of boiling water over it (double the amount of rice) and let sit until cooled. This begins to cook the rice.  Sprinkle with a mixture of Turmeric, sweet paprika, granulated garlic and powdered ginger)  * Optional-sprinkle with salt

Then add a layer of  frozen spinach, liquid and all, with some chopped parsley over that. 

I put a layer of shredded mozarella next, then thickly sliced tomatoes in a single layer before adding more cheese.

For a crunchy top I added raw wheat germ. 

(I didn't add any salt because the cheese has salt, as does the spinach. The rice could have used a bit of salt for flavor)