Rice Does Not Have To Be Boring, Doctor It Up!!

We love rice in my family, any and all kinds, but my favorite is wild rice. We all know that rice can be boring and bland cooked alone as is. Sure you can throw some kind of concoction on top of it, and make fried rice, and use in stir fries etc., but sometimes you just want something a little different. I love rice as a side dish to chicken, and pork, my favorite, or just in a bowl with a little butter on top.

Through the years I have cooked rice in every kind of liquid known to man, and in 50 years of cooking that is a lot of times. I have also used all kinds of spices in the liquids, and added all kinds of this n that once the rice has finished cooking. Rice is one thing that is very forgiving with anything you might try to do with it, another reason I love it.

Today we were having pork medallions marinated in pineapple juice, lite soy sauce and garlic, so decided to whip up a rice to go with it. This was my "concoction" as I call them to my husband for today.

2 cups of low sodium, fat free chicken broth

1 cup of organic pear juice

1 heaping cup of wild rice

1 large rosemary sprig/stem from my rosemary plant ( I use rosemary in a lot of recipes, just snip off hugh stem, toss in, remove woody part when done cooking, because I hate chopping it)

Black pepper to taste

Stir all together, bring to boil, then lower heat and simmer covered for about 30 minutes give or take depends on the simmer level,

check for doneness, if not done 5 minutes more, turn off heat and let sit on burner and add some chopped nuts and a dried fruit of choice, in amounts desired, I used a gourmet raisins medley I get online with 5 dif raisins in it, and chopped pecans my fav nut, your rice your add ins, if you love nuts add more nuts, if you love dried fruits add more of those!

Any rice can be made gourmet, basic, or doctored up just a little bit with an imagination. I have used rice cookers in the past, but for some reason always go back to my fav rice cooking pan, rice can be tricky to figure out but once you master it, it is one of the best and reasonably priced foods there is, a little goes a long way...