Rice.

I have been remiss in posting lately, but life interrupted.  My little 4 legged buddy Baxter got sick, I will spare you the details but lets just say I had to make a lot of rice.  Until now I sucked at making rice.  I have tried every method possible (even a rice cooker) and all I got was fail, fail, fail.  Well...that may be a little extreme, it was edible but not great.  There is nothing worse than "the best gumbo I ever made," or "the best red beans I ever made," ruined by mediocre rice.

It must have been something about making rice for Baxter that made me also crave rice.  I ended up making two pots of rice quite often.  One for him made with chicken stock, and one for dinner made with a slight variation of a recipe in a book my sister gave me for Christmas.  There are two ingredients I thought a bit strange for making simple rice, but still very common to most peoples kitchen.  Bay leaves and olive oil.  Neither ingredient over powered the rice, rather it added a really nice undertone and the olive oil also made the rice just a bit less sticky.   I finally felt like I made a great pot of rice.

 Here is what I did:

1 cup long grain rice

1 1/2 cup water

2 bay leaves

2 teaspoons olive oil (less for more sticky)

a pinch of kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Reduce heat to very low, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Remove from the heat and keep covered.  Do not uncover!  Remove lid and allow to cool for a few minutes.  Fluff with a fork and enjoy with your choice of goodness.


* Thanks to Susan for the olive oil tip.

* I was going to call this post "Rice Baby Rice"