This month's recipe was Wild Rice Dressing. Be sure to check out all of our links below to see how we each reinvented it!
This year, one of my mantras is to simplify. Everything. From errand-running to my exercise routine, my question of the year is "What can I subtract from this moment, this project, this idea to add simplicity?" (Thanks, Coco Chanel and Buddhists everywhere for your inspiration.)
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| Morning, pot a'twitter. |
Botanists help me out here, but wild rice isn't actually rice. It's an aquatic oat. Rice is a reed that grows in water-soaked fields, and oats are typically a dry-land plant. Wild rice is a version of an oat that grows not in dry fields but in wetlands, traditionally along riverbanks and the shallow parts of bodies of water. So, I decided to treat wild rice like its brethren, and make a bowl of oatmeal.
The combination of nutty, earthy wild rice and sweet, toasty maple syrup stopped my blog brain cold in the quiet of a late morning. No running the bowl and props to a window full of light with a bounce card to photograph. No DSLR to document. None of the other things we do as food bloggers. It was just a moment, halted by the discovery of wild rice, butter and maple syrup as a wonderful weekend-morning hot breakfast. I filled the bowl twice, sat, and enjoyed my new discovery. Sorry, oatmeal. Oh, wait, you are oatmeal.
Wild Rice Oatmeal
Burwell General Store
Serves: 2
Since there are few ingredients that make this dish what it is, I suggest using the best you can afford.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup organic wild rice
6-8 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp really, really good butter: I recommend Plugra unsalted
2 Tbsp grade B maple syrup (it's cheaper, and I think tastes nuttier and fuller than grade A)
cream
raisins and pecans (optional)
Method:
Place wild rice into medium saucepan of boiling, salted water, and cook for 45-50 minutes until grains are completely split open and apart, checking after 30 minutes to make sure the grains are free-moving in the water. Add more water if necessary. When done, drain the wild rice, split into bowls, top with butter, maple syrup and drizzle with cream to taste. Enjoy your morning, perhaps with a side of fruit and cup of coffee.
