Mexican Rice

We love mexican food in our house, especially homemade mexican rice.  You can eat this stuff hot or cold, mix it with refried beans, taco salads,  add some in a can of soup, burritos, the options are endless.  This stuff is good!

What you'll need:

2 tablespoons olive oil (any oil would work really)
2 cups long grain white rice
1/2 onion chopped
4 cloves garlic chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can diced green chilies (you can get the diced tomatoes with green chili's mixed in, but I don't think            you get quite enough when you do it that way)
3 teaspoons tomato chicken bouillon

Start by heating oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium high.  Dump in your rice and mix until rice is shiny and coated with oil.  You are going to fry the rice until it turns golden brown.  Half way through browning your rice (about 4 minutes) add your chopped onion and garlic.  About the time you onions are starting to look translucent, your rice should be a nice light brown color.  Reduce heat to medium low and pour in the can of tomatoes plus one and a half more cans of water, diced chilies, and bouillon and blend until everything is well combined. (When you pour in your tomatoes and water, you'd better put your apron on because it splatters quite a bit).  Cover and let stand for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, I like to move everything around again to keep the rice from burning to the bottom and ensure everything is cooking evenly.  I tend to check my rice every 10-15 minutes.  After your rice is the desired texture you like, about 40 minutes, but is a little wet still, remove the lid and let cook the rest of the way so it can release steam. At this point you will want to start fluffing your rice with a fork so you don't end up with a big mushy mess.  Total cook time is about 60 to 75 minutes depending on how dry you like your rice.  If you like it the way mexican restaurants serve, then let it go the full time fluffing every so often to let more steam release and to keep it from burning too much on the bottom.

We love this rice so much, we will even sneak bites of it cold.  Now I need to make some enchiladas or tamales to go with our rice.  Enjoy!  I know we always do!

Update 02.09.11 - - - We had this rice again for dinner last nice with some tamales I had in the freezer from our New Year's Eve Fiesta.  I added a tablespoon of cumin seeds into the rice when the onion and garlic when in.  It added that nice smokey cumin flavor, but only in the few bites when you got a seed.  Very tasty.  Give it a try!