May 10, 2010

My Favorite Mexican Rice Dish

For 55 cents, you can turn boring rice into delicious, yummy, rice! First, you need to go to Aldi's and buy a can of their diced tomatoes and green chilies. I cannot believe how flavorful it is!!..and for only 55 cents!! how can you beat that!!



For the rice, I used one bag of Uncle Ben's "boil in the bag" brown rice. After the rice cooks, add a few tablespoons of the tomatoes and chilis, a little of the juice from the can, a few dashes garlic powder, a nice dose of salt and some fresh chopped cilantro. Give it a taste and you will be in 7th heaven! (what and where is 7th heaven, I cannot tell you...but this rice has taken me there!)

I created this concoction the other day while planning a Mexican dinner. I almost bought a box of Spanish rice, until I read the list of ingredients on the box! It was a mile long! no thank you! When I spotted the cans of tomatoes and chilis I thought to myself, I can make this myself!! Later, when I tasted the tomatoes and chilis straight out of the can , it was a little on the spicy side, but absolutely DELICIOUS!! But don't worry...once you add it to the rice, it evens out the heat very nicely. Anyways, I could have eaten the entire batch of rice, and wished I had made more. If you have a hungry family that likes a little spice and loves Mexican food, you will probably want to boil up 2 or 3 bags. The one can of tomatoes and chilis is plenty for three bags. I made another batch of rice the next day and found there to still be enough to make yet another batch. As far as the cilantro goes, I am lucky enough to have some in my freezer from last year's garden. If you have to buy some, a batch of fresh cilantro only costs about 70 cents. (wash, pat dry, use what you need and freeze the rest in a Ziploc bag for future use.)