Chicken, and Wild & Red Rice Casserole with Mushrooms

Contains:  Dairy, wheat / gluten, optional alcohol, optional nightshades. 

For vegetarian, consider subbing in marinated tofu for the chicken.

This is mostly made in a skillet, but at the end, using an oven-safe skillet, cook the last part oven-bound. The recipe includes a light roux. Nightshades were added at the last step mostly for color, but they also add a good flavor, if they are on your food plan.

AND, TEN (10) YEARS OF BLOGGING!   

Look to the end of this post for the story…. or, avoid – it’s at the end!

Meanwhile, Father’s Day is upcoming this Sunday.  Honor your fathers, living or passed on.

The inspiration recipe was found at Saving Room for Dessert, although this is hardly a dessert.   (I tend to prefer to save room for recipes such as the below…)  I was not religious about following this recipe, so do lay any fault at my feet, not at the recipe’s…  Since I cooked my rice in a rice cooker, and not in the skillet they recommended, this is certainly not their recipe, but I did get much inspiration here.

https://www.savingdessert.com/chicken-wild-rice-casserole/

The author encourages one to adapt with what one prefers (and has to hand). Always acceptable!

This is a white roux. I typically don’t make a roux – I generally prefer “au jus” preparations, but this recipe seemed to want one.

Here, we’ve added the cooked rice into the roux.

When growing up, my parents would make wild rice for the family on special occasions.  They didn’t buy a rice blend, nor did they mix it with regular rice.  Yes, wild rice is expensive – it’s not easy to harvest, and it doesn’t just grow anywhere.  But this was why we didn’t eat it all that often, nor did they serve it to guests who might look at it askance and not eat much of it after loading up their plates.

A pre-assemblage of the other ingredients for this dish. Mushrooms, chicken, onion.

For this recipe, I debated going full-out wild rice.  I also debated combining it with red rice.  Both these rices have different ratios of water needs, but hey.  Adapt as per instructions for each rice, leaning more heavily towards the needs of the more prevalent rice.

(And you can opt doing this dish without any wild rice at all….)

This time a mix of half wild rice and half red rice won out.  (Red rice is inexpensive at Asian markets.)

Close up after preparation and plating:  I added in some bell pepper and grape tomatoes both for color and for an additional taste treat.

Prep Time:
Cook Time:
Rest Time:
Serves: 2-3.
Cuisine: American.
Leftovers:  YES!

Chicken / Wild & Red Rice Casserole with Mushrooms

• Cooking oil, about 4 tablespoons.
• 7 ounces / 200 grams boneless, skinless chicken thighs, fat removed, and cut into chunks.  You can sub with breast.   
• 1 small onion, diced.
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• salt and pepper to taste.
• 5 ounces / 140 grams fresh mushrooms, tough stems removed if they exist, prior to weighing.  Choose from shiitake, oyster, baby bella, or white mushrooms
• 0.5 cup / 120 mL wild rice / red rice blend.  I used a 1:1 mix.
• 0,5 cup / 120 mL water (or low sodium chicken or veggie broth).
• 0.5 cup / 120 mL dry sherry  (you can sub with water or broth, if so, I’d add a dash of lemon.)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon dried thyme, (or 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves)
• 3/4 cup / 180 mL whole milk
• OPTIONAL slivers of bell pepper and/or halved grape tomatoes.

 

Soak the rice mixture, then rinse and drain until the rice yields clear liquid.  (While the wild rice doesn’t need soaking, most other rice you might cook it with, probably will.)

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Pat the chicken pieces dry with a paper towel.  Dust with a little salt and some ground pepper.

In a skillet, heat up a tablespoon or two of cooking oil (I use avocado or grapeseed oil).  Pan fry the chicken, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Lightly browning is good.

You can get the rice cooking in a rice cooker – for 0.5 cups of the above mixture I used a total volume of 1 cup of liquid (1:2 ratio).  In this case, 0.5 cups of dry sherry and 0.5 cups of water.  Your rice to liquid ratio may depend on the type/s of rice you use.  Check packaging.

Remove the chicken to a separate dish, and then cook the onion and celery, adding more cooking oil  if needed (I didn’t need).  This should cook about  6-7 minutes, or until the onion is translucent and the celery is soft.  Add the garlic then, and cook for another minute.  Remove from the pan, and place with the chicken.

Add a tablespoon more of cooking oil, and then drop in the mushrooms.  Stir these until they are cooked, their liquid is gone, and they are browned.  Remove them to the plate with the chicken and veggies.

For the white sauce (roux):

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a skillet.  Add the flour, 1/4 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper, and 1/8 teaspoon thyme.   Cook with constant stirring, for up to two minutes.  Then, slowly add the milk, with more stirring or whisking.  Do this until the roux is thickened.  Do not add the milk quickly as it will clump.

 Add the cooked rice to the skillet with the roux, mixing this in.  Add the chicken and the cooked veggies, and mix this in as well.

OPTIONALLY, add slivers of bell pepper and/or halved grape tomatoes atop the dish.  I did this for color, but they also added in an additional good flavor.

Transfer the skillet to the pre-heated oven.  Cook for 15-20 minutes.

Allow to bake for about 15 minutes, uncovered.

Remove from oven, allow to rest around five or ten minutes, then serve.  Garnish with parsley.

Linking this recipe to the following:

• Fiesta Friday with co-host Laurena @ Life Diet Health
• What’s for Dinner:  Sunday LinkUP.
• Full Plate Thursday
• Farm Fresh Tuesday

---

 

It’s been an interesting ride, these ten years.  I’ve gotten more descriptive while blogging as years went on, and even before the first year was over, I went largely Paleo for health reasons.  This worked, although I am less Paleo now.  However the idea of whole foods without dodgy ingredients has always been in the back of my mind, at least since the 90’s.  Back when I started this blog, I lived on a suburban acre, and raised herbs in my lovely rock garden, and a small patch of veggies side-stepping out my front door.  I had too much shade there for this to amount to as much as I’d wanted.  

I bought 52 acres of land in rural western Massachusetts in 1998.  Seriously, I was only looking for 15 or so acres, and this property was the second parcel of land I saw.  But, 1) the price was extremely right; 2) part of it was already being plowed down to grasses each year; 3) it was reasonably flat, lived on a paved & maintained  road as opposed to a dirt one; and 3) this land just SANG to me.  So magical, so able to call to me.  I kept looking, since this one was large – but kept coming back to this particular lot.

My first effort to build, 2013, ended in discovering the architect and his builder were going to give me a preliminary price of half a million to build my home here.  Yeah, and especially in a region of the country where half a million is a ridiculous expectation…  Nope.  Mind you I wasn’t asking for anything fancy, either.  A little over 2100 square feet, a walk out basement, two baths, three beds (one mine, one an office, one for guests).  RIIIIiiiiight.  This didn’t even add in the water drilling or septic field.  Declined.    

My brother pointed me to a log home construction company located in my region, and I went with a pre-plan that I could modify within limits.  I did that, and saved oodles.  The start of construction was May 2015.  My builder was sort of a sleepy guy, so it took until December 2017 to get a Certificate of Occupancy.  Plus permitting is sometimes slow in rural areas, due to shorter hours.  I sold my old home September 2019, with some renovations to make it move.  I transplanted some of my old growing items prior to moving.  I designed a freakingly awesome kitchen (their plan was totally open, which would have meant I’d have had 1.5 walls of any upper cabinet space.  As a tall person with an occasionally wonky back, and coming from a home with dysfunctional uppers anyway, that was unacceptable!).  I have to thank GardenWeb.com for some additional improvement ideas beyond my own design.  (Visit the forums directly, not necessarily the current owner, Houzz.)  

I now raise chickens and quail, and eventually want to move to sheep, alpaca, goats.  Probably not all three, but I’m researching.  I’m setting in fruit tree and planting a veggie patch in lots of sun.  BTW, I retired July 2016.  

I enjoy food challenges.  You’ll see plenty of these in my recipes.  I also want to see what else I am able to grow, but of course crops don’t shoot up overnight.  My raised beds were put in midsummer last year, so I am drooling at this year’s potentialities!   And yes, I increased the blog focus from simply recipes (and some restauarant reviews) to homesteading.  All part of the same overall thing.