Apple Rice Stuffing

So, DH and I decided to make dinner for his mom, sister, and grandparents for a belated Christmas celebration. On Christmas Day, his mom was in the hospital with pneumonia. No fun. I was a little nervous because I have never cooked for them before, and every time we go there for dinner they cook a LOT of food. As in, both DH and his sister take home enough leftovers so that we eat for a week. Also, it’s very traditional midwest cooking. Not traditional in the from-scratch-down-home that you might be thinking of, but the frozen dinner rolls, green bean casserole, jello/cottage cheese salad sort of midwest cooking.

DH decided to roast some chickens in his new smoker/roaster/griller thing, and I was in charge of the sides. One of them was Apple Rice Stuffing, and unfortunately it was the one thing that didn’t turn out quite right.

However, I think it was because of operator error. And it’s not like it was inedible; everyone ate it (although it could be they ate it just to be nice; I’ve only been part of their family for four years so it’s quite possible had I served it to my family they would have summarily declared it a FAIL, as they did with my ginger butternut bisque.) Read the recipe, and I’ll tell you where I went wrong:

Apple Rice Stuffing

1 cup brown rice
2 1/3 cup apple juice
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 large onion diced
1 stalk celery chopped
2 large apples, unpeeled, diced
1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbs dried herbs (I used Herbes de Provence, but you can use any combination of oregano, basil, thyme, etc.)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook rice and apple juice until tender and set aside (about 40 minutes). Here’s where I think I went wrong. Since I was making another side dish and a pie (which I’ll blog about in the next couple of days) and was running  very short on time and oven/burner space, I decided to put the apple juice and brown rice in the rice cooker. It “dinged” at about 40 minutes into things, but it wasn’t very fluffy. And there was LOTS of liquid sitting there. Well, I figured it would cook more in the oven.

2. Melt butter in frying pan and sauté the onion and celery until soft.

3. Add everything else together and either stuff in poultry or place in a covered casserole dish and bake at 350F for 45-55 minutes. I dumped the juice and rice in. I didn’t have a covered casserole dish big enough so I used a stoneware crock with tinfoil over top. I also already had a pie in the oven, so it went on the second rack. When I stirred it together, it was more like apple/celery/herb soup. I hoped it would cook more in the oven.

Unfortunately, it didn’t. When I took it out of the oven, it was still soupy. I prayed that it would set up as it sit for half an hour. It did, but was still quite watery and the rice was undercooked.

The verdict: The flavor was awesome, but the rice was undercooked, as I mentioned. It is a really nice change of pace from the standard stuffing, so I think I will make it again, only next time not use the rice cooker.

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 6

Serving size: 1/6 of a recipe (8.8 ounces).
Percent daily values based on the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) for a 2000 calorie diet.
Nutrition information calculated from recipe ingredients by Living Cookbook.

Amount Per Serving
Calories 260.4
Calories From Fat (35%) 91.4
% Daily Value
Total Fat 10.73g 17%
Saturated Fat 3.13g 16%
Cholesterol 10.18mg 3%
Sodium 13.77mg <1%
Potassium 316.69mg 9%
Total Carbohydrates 41.23g 14%
Fiber 3.51g 14%
Sugar 28.31g
Protein 2.74g 5%