Spanish Rice

A while back, for a few years in a row around Christmas, my family cooked a Tex-Mex/Mexican style dinner. Most everything was made from scratch and tasted great, but for some reason that did not extend to the rice. I never really liked Spanish rice but decided to try the boxed mix version at our dinner anyway and was disappointed. It tasted too much like canned tomato and lacked general flavor and was mushy. I do like the rice in burritos, so I knew it could be good if we just gave it some thought.

Fast forward to a few months later where I somehow really wanted to have some good rice with a Mexican style meal, and chose this. It was easy AND really good. It is no harder than preparing it from a package, and has LOTS more flavor than the boxed mix. I now make it regularly with Tex-Mex/Mexican food. I like to serve it with refried beans and spicy chicken tacos.

Notes:

• My favorite kind of rice to use here is jasmine rice, though you can use any long grain rice you wish.
• I have not tried it with brown rice but I imagine if you did it might just take a little longer to cook.
• It will end up highlighting the flavors of whatever salsa you use, so make sure you like the taste of the salsa you plan to make this with. My favorite is a tomato based salsa with peach and mango, which makes it slightly sweet.
• To make it vegetarian, use a vegetarian broth of your choice instead of chicken broth. 

RECIPE: Spanish Rice

Warming Carrot Cauliflower Stew

I had a head of cauliflower and began looking for new recipes to use it in, and this one caught my eye because it is carrot based rather than tomato based.

Notes: I'm not sure what chile powder means here (like the spice blend that you use for making chili, or cayenne pepper, or what?). I didn't want it to be TOO spicy and there was already crushed red pepper flakes, so adding even more sharp heat with cayenne seemed like a bad idea. I put in some chili powder but then decided that was not the right flavor, and threw in a bunch of curry powder. I liked the curry powder. I used about 3/4 of a 1 lb bag of baby carrots instead of cutting whole ones into rounds because it's what I had. I used Better than Bouillon's No-Chicken Base + water instead of vegetable broth because I don't like the taste of most vegetable broth, especially if it's too strong. I topped it with chopped cilantro and ate it with some goat cheese toast.

Verdict: It tasted fine but not exceptional. I wouldn't go out of my way to make it again for the amount of work involved (pureeing the soup and especially separately roasting the cauliflower only to sog it up by throwing it in liquid). I didn't have chickpeas when I found the recipe and while I did end up buying some, I almost feel like this might be more delicious and texturally interesting with red lentils. I'm not sure whether you'd want to cook them in the soup after blending it, or cook them separately and add them in when you'd add the chickpeas.

RECIPE: Warming Carrot Cauliflower Stew