The Best Rice - EVER

I love rice. Fried rice, sushi rice, brown rice, but for the longest time I could never figure out how to cook the stuff. I'd follow the directions and the rice would turn out to be hard and uneventful. One day, thanks to Pinterest I found the PERFECT recipe to cook (brown) rice. I have tried this recipe with instant brown rice and long grain brown rice. Not sure how well it works for other types. I do things a tad bit different than Kitchen Parade's recipe...

I use pretty much the same measurements

• 2-1/3 cup water
• A splash or two of olive oil
• 1-1/2 cup brown rice

• First, pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. I always forget this step and sometimes have to take my pre-boiled water off the stove for a minute or two.
• Boil water and oil
• Put rice in a glass baking dish
• Pour boiling water over rice
• Stir around and top with two layers of foil (I usually keep two pieces and re-use them a couple times)
• Put in oven for 1 hour
• Fluff with fork
• Consume or add with your favorite ingredients

I am telling you, baking the rice this way is phenomenal. Usually it makes enough for two meals (my portions are usually pretty large though). The only problem is that some of the rice sticks to the baking dish, but it's usually easy to clean off. I am sure putting some oil on the pan before hand would help this.

My original plan for my rice was to create a modified version of a "cheezy" broccoli - quinoa dish. I had a lot of rice in my pantry so I decided to substitute that for the quinoa. Unfortunately, the store was out of nutritional yeast so my plans had to change just a bit more. I made the broccoli pretty much the same way but omitted the nutritional yeast and used a little less agave nector instead of maple syrup:

• 1 - 1 1/2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or bragg's Liquid Aminos)
  

  • 
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1 head (apprx. 2 cups) broccoli (stalks sliced thin and florets cut into bite-sized pieces)
• 2 Tbsp EVOO
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 clove of garlic sliced

add more of the ingredients to taste

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees 
• Add broccolli and other ingredients to a large bowl and toss well, completely covering the broccolli.  
• Put broccoli on a cookie sheet and roast away for 10 mins

I decided to make my rice a little earlier in the day to avoid the temperature difference in the oven.

The dish may not look like the prettiest thing you have every seen, but the agave nectar and soy sauce give the broccoli a unique flavor. 

This dish overall was quick, easy and quite affordable. 

All prepared while listening to the "Wolf Gang" Pandora Station.