I’ve had this America’s Test Kitchen book, The Side Dish Bible, on my Amazon wish list since I checked it out of the library a few months back. I liked it because, aside from having 1001 (not just 1000!) recipes, the index makes it so easy to find what you can make based on ingredients. My mommy got it for me for Christmas, which was fantastic.
On page 173, there is a recipe called “Hearty Baked Brown Rice with Andouille, Corn, and Red Pepper.“ The recipe does take over an hour as written (I mean… brown rice!), but due to the fact that I had every single ingredient pre-cooked, I was able to make it in roughly 5 minutes.
I used the following ingredients:
- Frozen pepper and onion mix that I sauteed, which is probably what took the longest.
- Pre-cooked Impossible Sausage and onions I had in the freezer from several months ago. We don’t eat a lot of “fake” meat products other than for adding flavor, so it was about 3 oz. for the whole pot.
- Dehydrated corn that I had rehydrated a few nights ago in Thermos with boiling water
- The brown rice I had made and frozen a few weeks back.
I didn’t have Andouille sausage, and I’m aware it would have added a completely different taste to this than breakfast sausage, but I’m ok with that.
I just sauteed the frozen veggies in oil, added the sausage and onions, and then added the corn and rice, along with a little water for moisture. I also added a soft, beef-style bouillon cube in there for flavor because the recipe called for cooking the rice in broth and my rice was plain.
It wasn’t beautiful, and my food photography leaves a lot to be desired, but Kiddo declared it “Make Again,” so I consider that a win.
A while back, I needed to make space in the freezer, so I dehydrated all the half-eaten bags of corn I found in the garage mini-freezer.
I have an Excalibur 9-tray dehydrator in my garage, and I’m a big fan.
As you can see, I’m also a big fan of Bonne Maman jams. Haha! I have about 40 jars from that company that I use on my dehydrated goods shelf. They look pretty. I’m not sure if I eat the jam because I like the taste or because I like the jars. Kiddo eats more jam than I do, anyway.
I label them with oil paint pens, which wipe off easily with a spritz of straight rubbing alcohol / isopropyl and a paper towel.
I’ve been experimenting with different ways to rehydrate dehydrated vegetables and fruit. In Kiddo’s opinion, the most surefire way to ruin a dish is to have an unexpected crunchy bit somewhere in there. I’ve come up with two ways that work for me, and I will continue to see if I can find better ways:
- Thermos method: I put the dehydrated produce in an insulated vacuum container / Thermos before I go to bed, and then cover it with boiling water. I seal it and go to bed. This worked well with the corn, which usually takes a while to rehydrate, even in soup in the pressure cooker.
- Instant Pot pressure cooker: I had a weird desire for oily eggplants a few days ago and made some caponata with some dehydrated eggplants and dehydrated cherry tomatoes. I put both dehydrated vegetables in the pressure cooker and let the cook for 30 minutes. I think this was overkill. It would probably have been fine after 15. Nevertheless, I mixed it all with olive oil and garlic, and ate the caponata with tortilla chips. There is clearly nothing better than oily eggplant and tomato with corn chips as a late night snack.
Happy New Year! I hope last night was as eventful or non-eventful as you dreamt it would be.
Skunk and Mouse Cottage 