Barbecue Pork Burgers

Here's another one of my unique burger recipes.  I see tons of recipes for barbecue pulled pork in the summertime, so the idea hit me to make a burger version of that.  Instead of cooking pork, shredding it, and putting barbecue sauce on it, I thought it would be fun to add barbecue sauce to ground pork and shape it into burgers.  Kind of like a simpler, easier version of pulled pork made on the grill.

Now, I have to tell you that it took me no less than three attempts to get this right.  I started off putting all of the barbecue sauce inside the burgers with the pork.  That made them taste awesome, but they were so loose that they fell apart on the grill.  We were still able to eat them, but they were more like barbecued loose meat sandwiches.  So I figured we needed more binders.  For the next attempt, I added an egg and some bread crumbs to the pork and barbecue sauce.  They did hold together much better, but I had to add so much bread crumbs to achieve that, that the burgers ended up tasting really kind of bland and "bready".  Not really what I was going for.  I was about to give up when an idea hit me while I was making my Teriyaki Turkey Burgers.  I put a small amount of the sauce inside the mixture, then brushed the rest of it on the outside of the burgers as they cooked.  It worked out perfectly for the teriyaki burgers, so I thought it was worth a shot on the barbecue burgers.  Finally, success!  They turned out great with this method.  My poor husband was not happy when I told him we were trying these burgers for the third time, but he was very glad we did after he tasted them.


Barbecue Pork Burgers


Ingredients:
1 lb. ground pork
⅔ cup plus 2 tbsp barbecue sauce, divided
4 hamburger buns
Cole slaw


Directions:
Place pork in a bowl and add 2 tbsp barbecue sauce.  Mix well.  Form into 4 patties.  


Grill burgers over high heat.  Grill for 5 minutes; flip over and brush cooked side with some of the remaining ⅔ cup barbecue sauce.  Grill another 5 minutes and flip again, brushing the second side with barbecue sauce.  Continue to cook burgers until they are completely cooked through and register 160°.


Place burgers on buns and top with cole slaw.


Makes 4 servings.

Jim loves cole slaw with anything barbecue, so that's why I topped them that way, but they would be good topped any way you like.  I actually really like the combination of barbecue sauce and ranch dressing, so I think that would make a good condiment.  

This is a really easy way to have the great taste of pulled pork without having to spend all day cooking it!

This recipe was linked up at Everyday Mom's Meal's Church Supper.

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Dill Salmon with Slivered Lemon

This is a really simple dish that looks fancier than it really is.  Everyone knows that lemon is really good on seafood, and this recipe takes full advantage of that.  It's an adaptation of a recipe I saw in the cookbook The Six O'Clock Scramble.


Dill Salmon with Slivered Lemon


Ingredients:
4 salmon filets (about 4 oz. each)
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp salt
1 tsp dried dill
1 large lemon


Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375°.  Line a baking sheet with foil and coat with cooking spray.


Wash the salmon, pat it dry, and place them on the prepared baking sheet.  Brush the filets with olive oil, and sprinkle them with the salt and the dill.  


Cut the lemon in half.  Squeeze the juice from one half over the salmon filets.  Cut the other half into very thin slices and then cut those slices in half crosswise, so they are now semicircles.  Lay the slices on top of the filets so that they cover it evenly.


Put the salmon in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until it is light pink and flakes easily.  


After salmon is served, press down on each lemon slice with a fork to release the juices inside.


Makes 4 servings.

So easy, so good, and so pretty!  I think this makes a nice presentation and would be absolutely perfect for dinner parties because it looks fancy but is really easy and fast to prepare.

The tip about pressing on the lemons with a fork was Jim's idea.  Jim and I removed our lemons, but Lena ate hers (minus the peel), making sour faces all through dinner.  

I actually didn't use regular dried dill.  I have a bottle of The Pampered Chef's All-Purpose Dill Mix that I won as a door prize and I used that.  It's a combination of mostly dried dill, some dried onions and garlic, and some unspecified "herbs and spices".  Like I said, it's mostly dill, so using dried dill will have the same effect.

The only trouble I had with this recipe was slicing the lemons thinly.  I assumed it would work best to use my best, sharpest knife, my Pampered Chef Santoku, but that didn't work at all.  The smooth blade didn't cut through the lemon peel and just squished it instead.  You have to use a knife with fine serration, something that will easily break through the skin.  You might want to have an extra lemon on hand in case you have problems with the slicing.  I actually used two lemons because of the problem I had.

Other than that, this dish is super easy to make.  And the combination of lemon and dill is so good on salmon. This is definitely going into my regular salmon rotation.

This recipe is linked up on Recipe Sharing Monday over at Jam Hands. 

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Secret Recipe Club: Crispy Baked Orange Teriyaki Wings

I have recently joined the website, Secret Recipe Club.  It's a group of food bloggers who each get assigned someone else's food blog and have to make one of their recipes.  It's a really neat concept and a great way to explore the food blog world.  This was my first month doing it and I was assigned the blog Every Little Thing. I was very interested to learn that the blogger, Stacy, is local to St. Louis, a city I lived in for about 3 years myself while I attended grad school and my husband attended seminary.  I have fond memories of our time in St. Louis and consider it our home-away-from-home-away-from-home, even though we haven't been able to visit for over three years now. 

While perusing Stacy's collection of recipes, I found several that I would like to try.  Some of them were dishes that I was somewhat familiar with making (like her Mexican Chicken Dip), but in the end I decided to go with a type of dish I have never made before: wings.  I like wings, although I don't really eat them very often.  But I had been thinking recently about how I would like to try my hand at making them.  Stacy's recipe for Asian Zing Wings gave me great inspiration.  

Stacy's wings looked great, but she did admit in her post that she would have done one thing different.  She sauced the wings before baking, and later realized it would be better to sauce them after baking.  So I took that suggestion and ran with it.  I decided that instead of just baking the wings plain, I would coat them in flour so that they got all crispy before being sauced.  

I also used a different sauce recipe than Stacy used.  I had some wings at a restaurant in Milwaukee earlier this summer called "orange teriyaki wings."  They were so good.  I wouldn't have thought to combine orange with teriyaki, but it really worked.  So I created an orange teriyaki sauce for my wings.

Here is the recipe I came up with.

Crispy Baked Orange Teriyaki Wings

Ingredients:

2 lbs. chicken wingettes

¾ cup flour

½ tsp salt

¾ cup reduced-sodium teriyaki sauce

3 tbsp frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed

1½ tsp honey

1½ tsp cornstarch

Directions:

Make sure wings are very dry; pat them with paper towels to remove any excess moisture.  Place wings, flour, and salt in a large bag or bowl and seal or cover.  Shake to coat.  Line a baking sheet with foil and place a cooling rack on top.  Spray the cooling rack with cooking spray.  Remove wings from flour, shaking off excess, and lay out on the cooling rack.  Place baking sheet in the fridge and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat oven to 425°.  Place baking sheet in oven and bake wings for 40-50 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 165° and wings are golden brown, turning once halfway through.

About ten minutes before wings are done, combine teriyaki sauce, orange juice concentrate, and honey in a small saucepan.  Combine cornstarch with a small amount of cold water and stir well.  Pour into teriyaki sauce.  Turn heat to high and let sauce come up to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until it thickens to desired consistency.  

Place wings in a large bowl with a lid.  Pour sauce over wings,  put lid on bowl, and toss to coat.

Serve warm.

Makes 4 servings.

I have to say, these turned out really well.  The combination of the super crispy skin and the tangy sweet and salty sauce is amazing.  Make sure you use reduced-sodium teriyaki sauce for this, or it will end up too salty.  

A note about the wingettes:  I had never bought wings before, so I didn't really know what I was doing when I went shopping for them.  I found "wings", and then I found "wingettes."  It was my understanding that the wings would have to be separated before cooking, while the wingettes were already separated.  I don't know if that's right or not, but I bought the wingettes.  I bought two 2 lb. packages and assumed they contained about the same number of wingettes.  Wrong.  The first package contained 14 wingettes while the second package contained 21.  That's a big difference!  I'm assuming that the 14 wingettes were much larger than the 21 since they weighed the same.  So you will have to take that into consideration when deciding your cooking time.  My wingettes were large, so they took about 50 minutes to cook through.  If yours are smaller, they will cook more quickly.

Also, when saucing the wings, you might want to reserve some of the sauce, in case you don't need the full batch to cover your wings.  It also depends on how saucy you like them.

My husband said these wings were way better than anything at Buffalo Wild Wings.  I'll take that as a pretty good compliment!

The wings right before going into the oven.  Refrigerating them for an hour after flouring them ensures a nice crispy exterior.

Golden brown and delicious!  Right before being sauced.

I definitely know what I will be taking to the next Superbowl party I am invited to!  I think it would work well to make them as written, and then throw them into a warm slow cooker for parties.

Stacy, thank you so much for inspiring this wing recipe!  You have a great blog and I really enjoyed going through it and reading your posts.  Oh, and one more thing: GO CARDS!! :)

Be sure to check out all of the other Secret Recipe Club posts by clicking on the thumbnails below.  This is so much fun and I'm really glad I get to participate!

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White Summer Sangria

I have never really been a wine drinker.  I just never cared for the taste of it.  I much preferred fruity mixed drinks.  But it turned out that I just hadn't found the right wine.  A year or so ago I discovered Moscato.  Moscato is a really sweet white dessert wine with lovely effervescence.  It's so tasty.  I'm really glad that I finally discovered a wine that I actually like!

Last fall I ran across a recipe for sangria made with Moscato.  I squirreled it away because, as you know, I have to make certain foods in certain seasons.  And this was definitely a summer recipe.  A couple of weeks ago my sister was in town, so after we put all the kiddos to bed, I whipped up some of this delightful stuff.  I ended up changing the original recipe, (go figure!), so here's my version.


White Summer Sangria


Ingredients:
1 (750 ml) bottle moscato
½ cup triple sec or other fruity liqueur
1 lemon wedge
1 lime wedge
1 tbsp sugar
6 oz. fresh raspberries
1 peach, sliced
2 cups ginger ale


Directions:
Pour moscato and triple sec into a pitcher.  Take both the lemon and lime wedges and squeeze the juice into the pitcher.  Add sugar and stir until dissolved.  Add raspberries and peaches and stir.  Chill in refrigerator for at least half an hour.


When ready to serve, add ginger ale and stir to combine everything.  Pour into glasses with ice and garnish with lemon and lime wedges.


Makes 4 servings.

Please excuse the poor quality of the photos.  Since I made this at night, the lighting was bad and these pics were the best I could get!

I had never made sangria before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.  I knew it contained wine and fruit, but that was about it.  Sangria is traditionally made with red wine, but this super sweet white wine version rocks!  And it seems "lighter" somehow, and more fitting for summer.

You can use frozen fruit if you get the unavoidable urge to make this out of season, just let the fruit thaw before adding it to the drink.

I made this again last night, but used Sloe Berry Liqueur instead of the Triple Sec.  That was really good too! You can really use anything you like, as long as it's sweet and fruity.

So pretty in the pitcher.

I hope you get a chance to make this before summer leaves us for good!

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Mocha Muffins

Of all the muffin recipes I have tried over the last few months, this is definitely my family's favorite.  It's a coffee flavored muffin with chocolate chips.  Yum!  It's an adaptation of a recipe I saw on the Tasty Kitchen website.  They were originally called "Via Cappucino Muffins" but I think "mocha" better describes them because a cappuccino doesn't have any chocolate in it (this is the Starbucks barista in me talking!).  I also had to adjust the recipe because as written it only made 8 muffins.


Mocha Muffins


Ingredients:
3 packages Starbucks Via Instant Coffee
¾ cup warm milk
½ cup canola oil
1 egg
1½ tsp vanilla
1½ cups flour
½ cup sugar
2¼ tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
¾ tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°.


In a large bowl, dissolve instant coffee in warm milk. Stir until instant coffee is completely dissolved. Next, add oil, egg, and vanilla and whisk until combined.


In another bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.  Pour wet ingredients into a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir well to incorporate completely. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips.


Fill muffin tins ⅔ full and bake for 17-20 minutes.


Makes 12 muffins.

If you like coffee and you like chocolate, I can guarantee you will not be disappointed with these muffins.  The  Via gives it a really powerful coffee punch.  I recommend making these with decaf Via if you are making them for someone else or if there is a chance you will eat any of them late in the day.  I read comments from people saying they had one after dinner and were up half the night!  I don't do caffeine at all (for health reasons), so the decaf was a no-brainer for me.  But if you want to have these as a little morning pick-me-up, then the regular will probably do just fine!

Now, I feel the need to divulge the fact that there was something else included in the original recipe.  Something that takes these from breakfast to dessert.  A frosting.  Now, I am a muffin purist, so I will give you the frosting recipe on one condition: if you put frosting on them, you must refer to them as mocha cupcakes, not mocha muffins.  Understood?  Okay, here it is.

Coffee Frosting

Ingredients:

½ cups butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar, or more as needed

½ tsp vanilla

2 packages Starbucks Via Instant Coffee

1 tbsp boiling water

Directions:

Beat together the butter, sifted powdered sugar (which you can use more than two cups of to attain the right consistency) and vanilla. In a small bowl, mix the Via Instant Coffee together with the boiling water until coffee is dissolved. Add it to the butter mixture and mix until fully incorporated. 

I have never made the frosting, so I cannot comment on it.  But I can say that these muffins are heavenly without it.  They are very moist and cakey and the chocolate chips pair perfectly with the robust coffee flavor.  

I really wish I was eating one of these right now instead of this boring old piece of toast!

I linked this recipe up on Jane Deere's Fusion Friday. Head over there to vote for it!

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Orange Honey Chicken

I love pairing fruit with savory dishes in the summertime.  The other day I made this dish, which pairs chicken with orange, honey, and cinnamon.  It's a combination that works really well and makes a really tasty dish.  This is an adaptation of an Eating Well recipe.

Orange Honey Chicken

Ingredients:

½ cup flour

¾ tsp salt, divided

4 chicken breast cutlets

1 tbsp canola oil

1 cup white wine

1½ tsp cornstarch

1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth

¼ cup orange juice

2 tbsp honey

Pinch ground cinnamon

½ cup slivered almonds, toasted

1 navel orange, thinly sliced (optional garnish)

Directions:

Combine flour and ½ tsp salt in a shallow dish. Dredge chicken in the flour, shaking off any excess.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook until browned, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate. Add wine to the pan and cook for 1 minute. Combine the cornstarch and broth; add to pan.  Scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan.  Add orange juice, honey, cinnamon, and the remaining ¼ tsp salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the pan and cook, turning the chicken once or twice, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat registers 165° and the sauce has thickened, 10 to 12 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a serving platter. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and garnish with the almonds and orange slices.

Makes 4 servings.

This is really good and really pretty easy to make.  I had to increase the amount of flour to dredge the chicken in; it only called for 2 tbsp for 4 chicken breasts.  And then you were supposed to use the "leftover" flour to thicken the sauce.  I certainly didn't have any leftover and could barely cover the 2 chicken breasts I was using.  I tried using flour to thicken the sauce, but was left with a bunch of clumps and it wasn't thickening properly, so I broke out the cornstarch.  I think cornstarch works much better for thickening sauces than flour does.  

It also called for the zest and juice of a navel orange.  I used that, and wasn't really satisfied with the flavor.  The orange I was using was really sweet and the finished sauce was missing some tartness, in my opinion.  I have found that bottled orange juice is more tart and has better flavor than freshly squeezed navel oranges.  Maybe I'm not buying quality oranges or something.  I don't know.  But next time I will use bottled orange juice.

The other change I made was that it called for a cinnamon stick instead of a pinch of cinnamon.  You can do it either way; I just thought the pinch was easier.  Oh, it also called for raisins, but I thought that sounded weird so I left them out.

I served this over couscous with green beans on the side.  It went over very well at my house.

Shared at 

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Tomato Essence Sauce

This is a recipe I have been making for several years now, but have never blogged about until now.  It is a  yummy buttery pasta sauce that includes all of the flavor and "essence" of the tomato, but without the chunky consistency.  I got it off the side of a box of some kind of pasta or something, but I can't remember now exactly what.


Tomato Essence Sauce


Ingredients:
1 cup vegetable or chicken stock
2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
¼ cup butter


Directions:
Put stock and tomatoes in a saucepan over high heat.  Cook until liquid has reduced by half, breaking up the tomatoes with a spoon as they cook.  Remove from heat and pour the tomato mixture through a fine mesh sieve, using a rubber scraper to get all the liquid out.  Discard tomato solids and put liquid back into saucepan.  Turn heat to low and add butter.  When butter has melted, whisk briskly to completely incorporate it into the tomato liquid.  Serve immediately over hot pasta.


Makes enough for 1 lb. of pasta.

I consider this a summertime dish because I would not even consider making this with grocery store "tomatoes". Yes, I used quotes because I don't even consider those pinky-orangey things in the grocery store tomatoes.  They have no flavor and therefore would make a disaster out of this sauce.  You have to have fresh garden or farmer's market tomatoes to make this.  

Remember to scrape off the bottom of your sieve because a lot of tomato goodness hangs there when you are straining!

This is a very thin sauce.  It will run all over your plate.  I have considered adding some cornstarch to it to thicken it up a bit, but haven't tried it yet.  

The picture above is this sauce on whole wheat gnocchi.  I think it's best on gnocchi because the little potato pillows soak up all the sauce.  So good.  But I also really like it on those refrigerated ravoilis and tortellinis too.

If you have an abundance of fresh tomatoes from your garden and aren't sure what to do with them all, give this sauce a try.

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Teriyaki Turkey Burgers with Asian Slaw

I know this isn't a great time to be posting a recipe involving ground turkey, but I made this about a week and a half ago, before I heard that it might have problems.  So tuck it away for later after that's all over with, or you can also use ground chicken (or even beef, really).

This is a recipe I created.  I like to come up with fun and different burgers in the summertime and I wanted to try a teriyaki one.  It turned out pretty well.  Here's the recipe.


Teriyaki Turkey Burgers with Asian Slaw


Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
¼ cup plus 2 tbsp teriyaki sauce, divided
2 tbsp green onions, finely sliced
½ cup red cabbage, shredded
½ cup carrot, grated
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
½ tsp sugar or honey
4 hamburger buns


Directions:
Combine turkey, 2 tbsp teriyaki sauce, and green onions.  Shape into 4 patties.


Grill burgers over high heat.  Grill for 5 minutes; flip over and brush cooked side with some of the remaining ¼ cup teriyaki sauce.  Grill another 5 minutes and flip again, brushing the second side with teriyaki sauce.  Continue to cook burgers until they are completely cooked through and register 165°.


Meanwhile, place cabbage, carrot, and cilantro in a small bowl.  In another small bowl, combine vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar or honey.  Whisk until completely combined.  Pour dressing over slaw and stir to combine.


Place each burger patty on a bun and top with the slaw.


Makes 4 servings.

Doesn't the slaw look so pretty?  You can use any kind of cabbage you want, but I thought the red looked really pretty with the orange of the carrot.  I forgot to add the cilantro; that's why you don't see it in the picture.  If the sesame oil is too much for you, you can use only 1 tsp of sesame oil and the rest olive oil.  That's what I did, actually, because I don't like very much sesame oil.

My husband skipped the slaw and topped his burger with a pineapple ring.  He raved about it, and while I did try one bite, I can't handle fruit on my burgers, so I think I'll stick with the slaw!

Brushing the burgers with the teriyaki sauce was a great idea.  I have been trying to make barbecue pork burgers and have failed twice now.  If I put enough of the sauce inside the burgers to achieve the flavor I want, the burgers fall apart on the grill because they are too loose.  Then a light bulb went off, and I thought about basting them with the sauce as they are grilling.  That way I still get all the flavor, but it won't make the burgers fall apart.  Now that I see how well it worked on these teriyaki burgers, I can't wait to try that method on the barbecue pork burger.

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Thai Beef with Basil over Coconut Rice

This is an adaptation of a recipe I saw Lucinda Scala Quinn make on Everyday Food.  I made it once and felt it needed some adjustments, so last night I made it again and was pretty happy with the results.  Here's my version.


Thai Beef with Basil Over Coconut Rice


Ingredients:
1¼ cups jasmine rice
1 (13.5 oz.) can coconut milk
¾ cup water
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp red pepper flakes
½ tsp Bangkok Seasoning
¼ cup water
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbs vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, grated
1 lb. ground beef 
¼ cup fresh basil leaves, chopped


Directions:
In a medium saucepan, combine rice, coconut milk, water, and salt. Cover and bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until rice is tender and liquid has been absorbed, about 25 minutes.


When rice is almost done, combine fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, red pepper flakes, Bangkok Seasoning, water, and cornstarch in a small bowl; stir until cornstarch is dissolved and set aside. Heat a cast-iron skillet or wok over high. Add oil and heat; add garlic. Cook, stirring constantly, 15 seconds. Add beef and cook, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, until completely browned, about 4 minutes. Turn heat to high and add seasoning mixture.  Cook 30 seconds, then turn heat down to low. Add basil. Serve immediately over coconut rice.


Makes 4 servings.

The original recipe calls for whole Thai chiles, but I thought that might make it too hot, so I used red pepper flakes and Penzey's Bangkok Seasoning instead.  Bangkok Seasoning is a really tasty Thai spice blend.  I use it in my Thai Fried Rice also.  You can add more red pepper flakes if you like things really spicy.

The first time I made it, it came out really dry and crumbly.  And way too salty.  I like salty probably a tad bit more than the average person, and it was way too salty for me.  It originally called for 2 tbsp plus 1 tsp each of fish sauce and soy sauce.  Even with using reduced-sodium soy sauce it was too much.  So this time I cut back on the fish sauce a tad and the soy sauce by more than half.  It was much better, but it's still on the salty side, so consider yourself warned!  The water and cornstarch were my additions to try to address the dryness issue.  I was wanting it to be a little bit more "saucy".  That certainly did the trick.  If you can't serve it right away (for instance, if your rice isn't quite done yet), then you might need to add a little more water to it before serving.

I also cut back quite a bit on the amount of basil called for.  The original recipe called for a cup.  Wow, that's alot!  I thought a quarter of a cup was just fine.  The basil really does lend a lovely flavor to this dish.  If you can find Thai Basil, you should use that, but my store only carries the regular Sweet Basil.

The coconut rice is the perfect compliment to the beef.  It's cool creaminess balances out the salty spiciness of the beef perfectly.

This dish really comes together very quickly.  I served it with broccoli that I seasoned with a little extra Bangkok Seasoning.

This recipe was included in a ground beef recipe blog hop on Savannah's Savory Bites.

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Baked Brown Rice

After taking a week off (we had to go out of town for a funeral and to visit some ill relatives), I am back with what you  might consider a pretty boring recipe.  Brown rice.  Yes, I know it's not all that exciting, but this is a really great recipe to know.  We eat a lot of rice around here, not only because it's super cheap, but also because it just seems to go with so many main dishes.  It's very versatile!  I know that brown rice is much healthier than white, but until I found this recipe I had very little success making it.  It takes much, much longer to cook than white, and I kept ending up with rice that was either still crunchy or rice that had seemingly exploded and no longer looked like rice grains at all.

Enter Alton Brown.  I don't know what you think of him, but I think he's a culinary genius.  I found his recipe for baking brown rice and I haven't looked back since.  It still takes a long time, but the thing I like about this recipe is that you put it together, throw it in the oven, and then you don't have to think about it for an hour.  Then after the hour is up, you open the oven door to find brown rice perfection.  The rice comes out tender, but still with a tiny bit of bite to it.  This method preserves the nutty chewiness of the brown rice.  And the grains remain intact; no exploding mess here!


Baked Brown Rice


Ingredients
1½ cups brown rice
2½ cups water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°.


Place the rice into an 8” square glass baking dish.


Bring the water, oil, and salt just to a boil in a covered saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.


After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.

To make Gingered Brown Rice: Follow same directions, adding 8-10 thinly sliced coins of ginger to the rice and water before baking.  When done baking, discard the ginger and fluff.


Makes 4 servings.

See?  Couldn't be easier.  The recipe originally called for butter instead of olive oil, but I use the oil because of my daughter's dairy allergy.  Still comes out perfectly.

You can use this baked rice the same way you would use white rice.  Eat it like it is, or doctor it up by stirring in extra ingredients.  Next time I make it I might try adding some sauteed onions to it before it goes into the oven.  It would just give an extra dimension of flavor.

So the next time you go to pull out your white rice, reach for the brown instead and give this recipe a try.

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