Herself's Recipes » rice

Easy Rice Florentine

Linda MacPhee-Cobb — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:00:18 +0000

Technically Florentine refers to dishes made in the Florentine, Italy style. These dishes include spinach and use a cream sauce. Over time that has shifted and it now usually refers to dishes with spinach and cheese. Rumor has it that Catherine de Medici brought the dish from Italy to the French court of Henry II in the mid 1550s.

This is a nice way to use up spinach or dress up some rice. I usually serve this dish with fish.

1 cup white rice

2 cups water

1 cup cooked spinach ( about 12 oz boiled )

1/4 cup Parmesan or other hard cheese, grated

1/2 white onion diced

1 Tablespoon butter

Take the rice, water and place in microwave for 15 minutes or so until water is evaporated.

In a small skillet brown the onion in the butter until clear.

Add spinach, cheese and cooked onions to your rice.

*If you try to save time by cooking the spinach with the rice, you will end up with green rice.

*If you add the spinach, cheese and onions to the rice before it is done you’ll loose some of the flavor. Wait and add them at the end.

Spanish Rice

Linda MacPhee-Cobb — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:53:00 +0000

This is a quick and easy side dish. I usually serve it with tacos or fajitas.

1 cup rice
2 cups water
1 can ( 16oz ) diced tomatoes
1/2 onion
1/2 pepper

Dice the onion and pepper.

Put the rice, onion and pepper into a skillet with a bit of oil and fry until onions are clear and rice is just browning.

Put rice, tomatoes, water, onion and pepper into a large microwave bowl. Cook for about 15 minutes.

Check every 3 or so minutes after until rice is tender and water is gone. Add more water if needed.

This is more of a US SouthWest dish than Spanish. A version is common to Mexico but does not have the onions, peppers and tomato chunks. A tomato paste is added instead.

This dish is clearly derived from Spanish Paella. Paella is a rice dish cooked in one pan with vegetables and meat, usually chicken. Meat is cooked first, then vegetables are added and finally the rice.

Greek Broccoli and Rice

Linda MacPhee-Cobb — Wed, 23 May 2007 12:00:00 +0000

This is a great healthy, one pan meal. It can be prepared the day before and heated in the oven at 350 for about half an hour.

It was a cold winter day and I had spent two hours driving through the snow. I found this little tiny Greek restaurant and had a platter of this dish. It was so wonderful I had to learn how to make it myself.

Prepare…
1 head of broccoli (steamed or boiled)
1 box Near East Rice (your favorite flavor) or 1 cup uncooked white rice
cook rice according to directions

1 cup tomato sauce warmed up (your favorite)
1 can cheddar cheese soup

add to soup
2 cloves grated or crushed garlic (be brave go heavy on garlic here)
1/2 cup diced chives or scallions

Put rice into a large casserole dish
Pour tomato sauce over rice
Place broccoli on top of rice and sauce
Pour 1/2 of cheese soup over broccoli

Serve

Broccoli came from southern Italy and is an excellent source of vitamins A and C and cancer fighting substances.

Garlic is one of the oldest cultivated plants, medicinal and religious use goes back at least 6,000 years. Chicago got its name from the wild garlic that grows around Lake Michigan.