Broccoli Rice Casserole before it goes in the freezer.

Today I’m going to take my leftovers from last night’s supper & make broccoli rice casserole. I pull out approximately 2 cups of the citrus rice & add it to a 8 X 8 corningware dish. Pull out around 1/2 cup of the broccoli & return that to the refrigerator for my salad later. The rest of the broccoli I add to the corningware. We keep a ziploc bag of shredded cheddar cheese in the refrigerator at all times & I get it out. Add cheese until it looks like enough & mix thoroughly. Throw the casserole dish in a gallon size ziploc bag & into the freezer. When the mood strikes, I’ll pull it out of the freezer & bake it in the oven at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes. The time difference will depend on whether or not I thaw the broccoli rice casserole before cooking it. It’ll come in very handy some time & took less than 10 minutes because I used planned leftovers.

Don’t know about you, but salmon & rice go together naturally. I have had a baked potato with salmon, but unless I also had broccoli rice casserole I wasn’t happy. Sometimes I like to flavor the rice & this doesn’t seem like a plain rice night. Funny how that is.

My George Foreman Grill

Simple things can make a big difference taste wise. Not going to do anything fancy. Measure 4 cups of water into a large pot, add a teaspoonful of butter & a smidgeon of salt. I don’t use much salt & seldom use as much called for in a recipe unless I’m baking. Pull the orange juice out of the refrigerator & pour about 1/2 cup in the pan. Turn the heating element to high heat, put a lid on the pot & wait for the water to boil. As soon as the water comes to a boil, I add 2 cups of long-grained rice. This will make a lot of rice, but leftover rice is a good thing as far as my family is concerned. Turn the heat down to medium-low and continue cooking for about twenty minutes. That’s it. Nothing fancy, but the rice will have a delicate citrus taste.

If you don’t have a George Foreman grill or a knock off, I don’t know how you live. It’s one of my favorite kitchen tools & perfect for fixing salmon. Occasionally, I do something fancy, but it’s going to be straight simple salmon tonight. Sprinkle some seasoning salt and pepper on one side of the salmon. Smear a little butter on it & slap it on the grill. Repeat the above steps on the side facing up. Squeeze a little bit of lemon juice on it & let it cook. Depending on how thick the pieces of salmon are, I grill them for 6-10 minutes.  I like my salmon pretty well done.

Salmon cooking on the grill.

In the meantime, I have another pot with about 1/2 cup of water in it coming to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, I add the entire pound bag of frozen broccoli to it. This will finish about the same time as the salmon. Again, I’m wanting leftovers so I’m not concerned with the fact that that’s more broccoli than I need for supper.

Supper ready for a fork.

That’s it. In less than 30 minutes, supper is ready.