Rice Congee

My mother discovered this dish earlier this week. Congee is a rice porriage sort of dish. The wonderfulness of this recipe is that it stretches a cup of rice into many servings. It's easy to make and since the dish is rather plain it takes on a variety of flavors.
To make congee, add 1 cup rice to 6-9 cups water (we use 6 and it seemed like plenty of water). Throw it in the crockpot on low overnight.
My mother added 3 bananas and cinnamon to the pot and then served it with sugar and milk.
I think it would be better with ginger and garlic. I ended up adding a little sugar to my banana dish and then adding MSG to give it that salty savory sort of flavor.
I, personally, am not a huge fan of sweet rice even though this dish has plenty of opportunities to offer both sweet and savory.
I used brown rice and ended up with a mushy mass so it might be a good way to work brown rice into your diet. Overall, it was tasty and reminded me of wet oatmeal. I plan on playing with the flavors and seeing what goes best for us. I think using apples would still be good - perhaps with some walnuts and dried cranberries to make a breakfast dish.
This is not just for breakfast. I read that many use this as a "sick" dish and I can see the appeal. I would love to have a great dish for when we are all sick and no one wants to cook and this seems like it. Maybe cook it in chicken broth with garlic and ginger - think I'm craving garlic and ginger - maybe some lemongrass. I'd love to hear what you ate with congee.

Aromatic Rice

Please bear with me as I petition for a slot in the Sodastream promotion. I work with a variety of companies to test products and for me that's a fun and inexpensive way to try new foods. This campaign is the first one I have been really interested in that involves an appliance. These are highly competative campaigns and I usually sit back and let everyone else fight over them while I enjoy my sample of breakfast cereal or cleaning product. However, I have big plans for the Sodastream and I wasn't kidding when I say I have wanted one for ages.
Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program. Tonight, we are making fried tofu with almond sauce. This is the first time we have attempted fried tofu and we have high hopes for it. Lately my husband has been complaining about having rice with dinner. When we were gluten free, rice was served several times a week. Right now we're having pasta several times a week and I want rice. To comprimise, I'm returning to a rice dish that I used to make often. It's an Indian version of rice that gives the dish a slightly sweet, spicy flavor. The rice is cooked with spices so it's still just rice but with flavor. The spices do not add any difficulty to the dish and you can make it just like any rice. The instructions have you soak the rice before hand. This is traditional to the dish but not something I often do since I rarely think about making rice until it's time to cook. Soaking does make a less starchy rice that keeps the grains from sticking.

Aromatic Rice
1 ½ cups dry rice (basmati is the best choice)
2” cinnamon stick
2 whole cloves
2 green cardamom pods, slightly crushed
Wash rice with cold water until it runs clear, cover with water and soak for 30 min. Drain with sieve. Put into thick-sided pot with 2 cups water. Add spices, stir and bring to boil over high heat. Reduce to very low heat, cover and cook 25 min. Remove from heat, let sit 5 min, fluff with fork and remove spice. Serve as normally would.

Pork and Rice

One of the few things my father made as we were growing up is a Kraft recipe for Pork Chops and Rice. Things have changed but we still love this concotion. My father's original recipe uses regular rice and bakes in the oven. I found a new version of this recipe that makes it on the stove with minute rice. The original recipe also calls for creamed soup but it is not gluten or dairy free.
Here is how we revamped the recipe for last nights dinner.
4 pork chops
2 cups minute brown rice
2-3 cups liquid (we used a combination of soy milk and water)
1/2 stick Nucoa
1 onion chopped
3 celery stalks chopped
1 package instant dry soup mix (we used onion and later realized it had barley yeast - which I have no idea what that is but we are not sure it's gluten free. There are plenty of soup mixes out there that are though)
Melt Nucoa in a deep frying pan (we have something called a chicken pan which is a cast iron skillet-like pan that is about 3 inches deep with a lid). Brown pork chops in Nucoa. Remove pork chops and place in an oven at 300 - 350 to keep warm and cook more of the center. Fry onion and celery until tender. Add liquid and bring to a boil. Add soup mix and rice. Top with pork chops from oven (it seemed like it took awhile for the veggies to saute but then we were cooking slowly). Cover with lid and cook until rice is tender. Serves 4 very comfortably.
Using the brown rice does mean it needs to cook slightly longer than white rice and requires more liquid.