Spanish Rice

I don't eat a lot of meat (not a vegetarian by any means, I just never seem to cook it much) and I love fruits, veggies, and grains (quinoa, rice, oatmeal, etc).  Today for dinner, I decided to make some Spanish Rice.  I got the recipe from a really old cookbook from my church back home, put together by MOPs (Moms of Preschoolers).

To start, I chopped up a yellow onion and a green pepper.  There were measurements for each, but I wasn't going to use just half, so I did a whole of each one.

I sauteed these in a big pan for about five minutes over medium heat.  A long time ago, I bought a big thing of sunflower oil (I can't even remember why).  It is basically the equivalent of olive oil, with even less of a taste, and apparently, is less sensitive to heat so you can cook at higher temperatures.  Anyway, I used sunflower oil to cook the veggies.

After they were done, I took a can of diced tomatoes and measured how much liquid was in it (3/4 of a cup for mine).  I added the liquid and the tomatoes to the mixture, and added enough water to make the liquid total 1 and 3/4 cups (so if you are struggling to follow, I added one cup of water!).  I also added one teaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of sugar.  Finally, I put in one and 1/3 cups of rice.

I brought everything to a boil and then let it simmer for twenty minutes.  Right when I was ready to simmer, I realized I somehow didn't have a lid that fit the pan I was using.  I didn't want to use another pan, so I stuck an ill-fitting lid over the whole thing. I think that is the beauty of Spanish rice...it seems less tricky than normal rice (which sometimes gets sticky or gloppy when I cook it).

Everything looked so delicious that while I was bringing it to a boil, I kept trying to sample it and then I would get a bunch of little super hard rice grains in my mouth and it was not pleasant.  Try to hold off on sampling, no matter how tasty is seems.

Anyway, the final product was so good.  When I first tried it after twenty minutes, the rice was still a little crunchy (I think because more water escaped with an ill-fitting lid).  I added a bit more water and let it cook another five minutes or so, and the problem was solved.

Today, I also painted my nails blue. Haha.

It's not as bright as the picture may look.

Now I might be headed back to downtown Eagle for some more rodeo...we'll see.

Tomorrow? DEFINITELY going to see the Birds of Prey!