Oven Rice

I am a last minute cook for the most part.  Cooking is not my favorite hat to wear.  I may as well come clean and admit I need work in this area.  Not that I'm a bad cook.  My mom was an excellent teacher and I honed my skill as a consultant for Pampered Chef for 5-6 years.  For me cooking is more of a spiritual battle than anything.  I find myself aggravated by how much time foraging for food, preparing, and feeding my troops actually entails.  I would rather be doing any number of other things, but a minimum of three times a day my presence is ordered to the kitchen.  I know I need to pray about having a better attitude concerning the process, and I have.  But then I find myself in the middle of a new ruffled project or knee deep in soft loamy topsoil and I once again resent the kitchen's call.

One way I am trying to overcome my spiritual deficiency in this area was to paint one of my upper kitchen cabinets with chalk board paint to display our weekly menu.  This circumvents the dreaded, "What's for supper?"  It also gives me a loose plan to go by.  I LOVE the weeks where the menu tells me we have a family birthday party or some other get together.  It brings joy to my heart to see that there...

This afternoon we had to run to town and didn't get home until 5:00. (Fortunately for us the kids aren't used to eating until close to 7:00 when Breadwinner calls it a day)  In the past this may have been cause for irritation as I tried to decide what to feed everyone.  Tonight I just turned on the oven and popped in some ham balls and rice, add some frozen broccoli and presto!

I am newly in love with making rice in the oven. So easy and hassle free!

Oven Rice
1 1/2 cups rice (I use brown rice)
2 1/2 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp butter

~Boil the water and add to rice et al in 8''x8'' pan.  Cover with tin foil and bake for 1 hour at 375 degrees.  I always double this recipe and make it in a 9''x13'' pan.  Go ahead and saute a bit of onion, carrots, celery, broccoli or anything else and throw it in as well.  Easy rice pilaf.