Savory Cranberry Wild Rice

Well, once again we found ourselves snowed in yesterday. Around 10 a.m. I  ambled down our driveway in the almost waist deep snow to the road, then walked the distance to the more traveled artery to the highway, and saw it was still ridiculous and un-plowed. This has been the 7th snowiest winter in the Northland, and the last count I believe was 117 inches so far... When I say so far, that does imply it will snow more, because I know it will.... Needless to say it's been a long freaking winter. People are starting to get beyond stir- crazy, myself included.  At least we had a fridge full of foodstuffs, because I can always entertain myself with cooking for the most part. (A Breaking Bad marathon didn't hurt either...)

 I've been on a cupboard rotation rampage lately, because I've found so many foods that have expired. I'm not sure how that happened, since we just moved and I thought we cleaned most everything out before so we didn't have to lug it along, but then again I am a bit of a food hoarder...  I've had some wild rice for a while, and decided we needed to cook it up. It's one of our favorite foods ever, and this snow-storm rendition of whatever I had in the cupboards was really tasty.

Savory Cranberry Wild Rice

-1 cup wild rice, rinsed

-4 cups vegetable or chicken stock

-1 medium yellow onion, diced

-3 stalks celery, diced

-1 cup craisins

-t salt and pepper

-1/2 t. cinnamon

-1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

-1 T. olive oil

Directions:

Bring stock and rice to a boil, cover and simmer for 40 minutes. While that's simmering, heat olive oil in a pan, and saute' onions and celery for 10 minutes over low heat until softened.  Toss cooked rice and veggies together with cinnamon, parsley, craisins, salt and pepper. Serve warm.

* makes 8 cups, 

Nutty, sweet and savory,  it's the best of all possible worlds! And it's subtle enough to be a side dish for tons of main dishes. I made quite a bit of this, so the recipe could be halved if you aren't feeding a small army. It's just the two of us, so we will be eating leftovers all week, which is fine by me! 

I just thought I'd throw a picture up to show the ridiculousness of the snow we have here. That's almost up to my head, and yes, that's how much snow we still have on April 5th. It's starting to melt now a little, and I'll happily rejoice in the messy mud to get rid of the snowbanks. Enjoy your weekend!