Blue Cheese Brown Rice "Risotto"

Blarg. I've been too busy to cook recently which, for those who know, doesn't make me happy. I had a night off this week so I was psyched to give a go at some ho'made cookin. Yeah. But... by the time I actually got around to cooking dinner, I was so tired and scattered that it was mostly scrambling and cursing trying to make something out of whatever bits of food I had around the house. One of the concoctions was actually delicious and amazingly simple.

I took one bag of frozen brown rice, like the kind pictured above, cut a slit in the top of the bag and boiled the bag in about 2 inches of water for 2 minutes. Then I carefully fished the bag out of the water and dumped the rice from the bag into the boiling water. I added a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, about two tablespoons of blue cheese, three tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese and a heaping teaspoon of ground sage. Then I stirred this into the boiling water until most of the liquid had evaporated (4-5 minutes). I then added a teaspoon of flour, stirred well (about another 2 minutes) and took the mixture off of the heat.

The end result was unique and delicious and tasted like creamy risotto you would get in a restaurant!!!

madtasty twenty minute meal

So, I've been having far too many Rachel Ray evenings lately, where I can barely bring myself to cook.  This meal is for me a step up from "my version" of the quick fix that Alana made.  The key is relying on exceptionally tasty (probably very high sodium, I'm afraid to look at the back of the box) rice-in-a-box:

For accents and some protein, I'm all about the crisp green goodness of shoots.  In this case, pea shoots:

 Since everything I make turns into a curry regardless of whatever I'd hoped to make at the start, this time I actually made on on purpose.  Have a look at some of our curry recipes to learn how.  I focused on cauliflower, carrots, white beans and corn in this one.

 The rice takes an exact twenty minutes to simmer, which gives you just enough time to chop vegetables, throw on a medium high heat and get to currying.  And I can't get over how great the pea shoots look when you're plating things.  They look good even if you just use one or two for garnish.  And they last forever in the fridge. 

  But there you go.  Twenty-five minutes from start to finish.  Rachel Ray can go climb a tree.