Easy Mexican Rice & a Cooking Class
Do you love Mexican food? Does you family love enchiladas so much that they'll eat you out of house and home in seconds? Mine does! This time I was smart, though, and made the side dish so it would be done BEFORE the Enchiladas:) That way we actually had leftovers at the end of the meal. I'm so clever.
Mexican Rice is SUPER easy... but it takes a long LONG time. At least it did for me, using whole grain, brown rice.
Ingredients *Remember, I was making a LOT so I could send some home with each of the families, I would probably only make 1/4th of this if it were just my family)
1 bag brown rice
1 Quart bag of Salsa (I used our frozen homemade salsa)
1 small bag of frozen corn
1 quart sized bag of black beans (I used some frozen that I made last time I did a big dried bean cooking day)
handful of chopped & cooked jalapenos
1 carton/quart of vegetable or chicken broth
1 quart of water (at least, I just add water as it cooks down as needed)
Directions:
Add rice to the water and broth, bring to a boil over medium heat.
Add salsa, beans and corn, stir and cover, turn heat down to med-low and simmer.
Stir occasionally, add more water if needed.
Simmer on med-low for at least an hour until tender.
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| This is the meal that we had for dinner... the cooking students took home the rice and enchiladas, but I forgot to send the beans home... oops! |
Cooking Class!
I also had a cooking "class" yesterday. I teach a nutrition & fitness class for our homeschool group's co-op. I had 7 students over yesterday to learn how to make Chicken Enchiladas with homemade sauce. Everyone brought enough ingredients so they could take home a pan of enchiladas for their family. I also sent home Mexican Rice for everyone as well.It went SO fast. We had four pans of enchiladas with homemade sauce done and out the door in an HOUR! I was impressed. Those kids were fast! We had the Tomatillos and various peppers chopped, diced and ready to puree really fast. I had two girls chopping the tomatillos, another dicing up peppers (with gloves on), a couple chopping up garlic, one chopping spinach... then while the sauce was bubbling, we had girls dicing up chicken breasts and someone else chopping Cilantro. It made for a fun, fast dinner and everyone went home with a full meal.
I'm thinking this might work as a business idea, if I could figure out how to price things. I would definitely need to take all the ingredients with me though, as I learned yesterday, not everyone recognizes some of the less common ingredients I tend to use. What do you think? Good idea? Would you or your kids enjoy a cooking class that resulted in a home cooked meal at the end of an hour or two? (We were in a big rush because of some of the kids having tennis afterwards, so we had to make it quick. I'd prefer to draw it out a little and actually get a little more instruction in there... and make it 'fun' as well).
Thoughts?