Saturday Night Mexican Fiesta

Saturday night we made "“Mexican Food"” for dinner. This means tacos, refried beans and rice. This time I thought I'd mix it up a bit.
I got some soft corn tortillas for the tacos instead of the regular hard shells. And I tried a new recipe for the rice. The refried beans? Well, I was slack .They came right out of a can.

So, lets talk about the NON-Slack parts of the dinner. And what we could do to make it healthier, with more FOOD in it.

First the rice.
For Saturday nights dinner I used my favorite Jasmine Rice. Let me give you my basic recipe and then we can talk about what to do to make it better.

• 1 cup rice
• 2 ¾ cups water
• 2 cloves garlic
• Spices to taste (Cumin, chile, onion)
• Olive oil

Brown the rice and garlic in oil in a skillet over medium high heat. The rice will become sort of translucent. When you get that nutty aroma rising from the skillet its time to add the water and bring to a boil. When it hits the boil, lid it, turn it down as low as possible and don't disturb it for 20 minutes. Then take it off the heat and let it 'rest' for 5. When you finally unlid the pot don't stir the rice, unless of course you LIKE sticky rice.

Many people I know have a problem with this one little piece of the 'Rice puzzle', so let me repeat it. Don't disturb the rice after you have lidded it. Don't even take the lid off to 'check it'. Face it, if its going bad there is nothing you can do to salvage the rice. You'll just have to restart it. So just lid it and forget it.

Ok, now for suggestions to make it more FOOD.

• Use Brown rice, it's better for you
• Add a cup of diced tomatoes.
• Add a handful of chopped spinach.
• Add an onion chopped with the garlic and rice during the browning process.
• Use Chicken or vegetable stock in place of the water
  

Saturday night I used my normal Jasmine White rice, but I did add a cup of chopped tomatoes, and 2 tblsp of Cumin, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, 1 tsp yellow curry powder.

When I opened the lid it was fragrant and colorful. The rice had adopted the colors of the spices.
We all took deep breaths of the goodness and then dug in.


Dave