Continuing with our latest theme of homemade recipe replacements for store bought packaged foods. The recipes we’ll feature in this series will be simple to make and tasty too.

Today’s side dish recipe is Spanish Rice, a mix of rice, celery, tomatoes and spices. There is no reason to purchase this as a box of dehydrated tomatoes and vegetables because it’s so easy to make from scratch. You find this recipe flavorful with the typical Spanish Rice taste coming for the most part from the chili powder and ground cumin.

Cooking Rice
The Spanish Rice recipe starts with 3 cups of cooked rice (that’s one cup dry rice cooked at a simmer in a covered saucepan along with two cups of water until the water is completely absorbed. Usual cooking times for short grain rice is about 20 minutes. We find Basmati rice cooks faster and is usually done in about 10 – 12 minutes. Brown rice takes longer and takes about 45 minutes. Once the water has been absorbed by the rice, remove the saucepan from the heat and let sit for 5 minutes. For our Spanish Rice we used Basmati rice — it’s our favorite rice. If you like, you can use day old rice for this recipe, and you’ll find the resulting Spanish Rice has a different texture.

Spanish Rice Recipe
3 Cups cooked Rice [above]
1/2 onion, chopped fine
2 stalks celery, washed, and diced
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp oregano leaves
1 tsp ground cumin

1. Place 1 tbsp olive or canola oil in a large non-stick skillet and heat.
2. Add the onions, celery, and garlic, and cook until the onions and celery are tender.
3. Add diced tomatoes, chili powder, oregano leaves, and ground cumin. Stir and cook about 2 – 3 minutes to reduce the water from the tomatoes a little bit.
4. Add the 3 cups of cooked rice, and mix well. If usning fresh made rice, the recipe is ready to serve. If the rice was day old from the refrigerator, cook, breaking up the rice some with the spatula, until the rice is warm.

You may add 1/2 cup diced green bell pepper to this recipe if desired. Remove the membrane from the green pepper, and then dice into 1/2 pieces. Add the pepper to the recipe along with the onions and celery in step 2.