wild rice chicken supreme

1 6-oz package Uncle Ben’s Original Long Grain Wild Rice
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
dash black pepper
1 cup half and half
1 cup chicken broth
2 cups cubed chicken (or turkey, post holidays!)
1/3 cup diced roasted red peppers
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup chopped slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 400.

Cook the wild rice according to the directions on the package.

While the rice is cooking, prep your ingredients. The rest of the cooking process goes so much more smoothly if you do!

While rice is cooking, melt butter in a large sauce pan. Add onion and cook over low heat until tender. Stir in flour, salt and pepper (it’ll be really clumpy).

Add the half and half a little bit at a time, forming a roux (a paste). If you add all the liquids at once, they’ll never get absorbed. The trick is to add a little bit, stir until absorbed, and add more and stir more. Then add the chicken broth, using the same “add a bit, stir a bit” process.

Add the wild rice to the roux and mix well. Now add the parsley, chicken, peppers, and almonds. Mix well.Pour into your greased casserole dish and bake for 40 minutes.

If you have cooked yours for 40 minutes and it’s still not brown along the edges, put it on broil for a couple minutes. Watch it closely, though, because you don’t want it to burn!

Serve hot!

When I was growing up, no one told me that stuffed peppers usually have meat in them. Really? Why would you do such a thing? It sounds downright awful. These are meat free and chock full of flavor. I would just eat the rice and cheese mixture, but I figure a girl needs her veggies. However, if you don’t care for bell peppers, feel free to just make the rice mixture and bake it with some cheese on top!

The trick to getting the peppers perfectly cooked is to microwave them before you stuff and bake them. Don’t miss this step! I often forget to do this, and when I sit down to eat, I end up emptying out all the peppers and then mircrowaving them. This makes a huge mess and does not make for very nice presentation. So, learn from my mistakes and microwave at the start of the recipe so you don’t forget!

stuffed peppers

4-5 red bell peppers, cut in half lengthwise and microwaved for 4-5 minutes or until softened
1 14.5-ounce can stewed tomatoes
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup brown rice
2 tbsp black wild rice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp salt
Cheddar cheese, sliced

First, microwave those peppers. If you don’t do it now, you’ll forget, and you’ll be sad when you sit down to eat!

Next, combine the rice, tomatoes, water, and cumin. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer on low until the brown rice is fully cooked. Because different types of brown rice have different cooking times, look on your package for instructions on how long to cook the rice. Mine usually takes 40-45 minutes.

Once the rice is cooked and the liquid is absorbed, add the beans and salt. Stir to combine.

Preheat oven to 400. Place the pepper halves open-side-up in a 9×13 pan. Divide the rice mixture among the peppers.

Add cheese slices to the top of each pepper. This is optional, but it’s my favorite part, so I wouldn’t skip it. However, if you have a dairy allergy, go ahead and make them without the cheese!  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Serve with a fork and knife! We usually serve 2 halves to each person as a complete dinner. Enjoy!

I was in the mood for something easy, new, and yet somehow familiar the night I got back from the county fair. I had spent 8 hours in 100 degree heat and was in no mood to come up with something fantastic and creative. And given that my food consumption for the day included funnel cake and shaved ice with syrup over the top, dinner needed to be healthy and filling. Oh, and oven use was also a no-no. Given all these restrictions, I found a recipe that my mom clipped out of a magazine years ago and tweaked it so that it would meet all my requirements. Easy chicken and rice wraps were born. Healthy, filling, and somehow homey, these hit the spot.

Just to be clear, this recipe is designed to be tweaked to your own tastes. If you don’t like something, take it out. If you love it, add some more. For example, if you had some olives or corn laying around, you could add that if you wanted. And it would be easy enough to make vegetarian – all those rice and beans are filling enough if you prefer to ditch the chicken. This recipe is all about YOU!

easy chicken and rice wrap

3/4 cup of uncooked brown rice (or 1 to 1.5 cups cooked brown rice)
2-3 large tomatoes, chopped
1/2 to 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
2 cups shredded, cooked chicken
1 can black beans, rinsed (I only used about 1 cup of beans… I’ll save the rest for another use)
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 to 2/3 cup shredded cilantro
1.25 oz (one package) taco seasoning mix
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
sour cream and salsa and additional tomatoes, optional
4 large flour tortillas

Cook the brown rice according to the package directions.

While the rice is cooking, combine the tomatoes, jalapeno, chicken, beans, corn, cilantro and taco seasoning mix in a pan and heat through.

Add the rice and mix well.

Layer tortillas with cheese, rice mixture, sour cream, and salsa. Fold and eat!