Hump-Day Quickie: Spinach-Cheese Rice

A lot of our nearly-heatless recipes have been desserts because, well, it's nice to treat yourself when you're hiding indoors from the weather. Also, most of our low-heat suppers have been a simple matter of "put it in frying pan and cook until done." I've also made the occasional batch of haluski even though it involves two burners, and maaaaybe turned on the oven to serve frozen fish alongside it. (Shhhhhh....) But today, we're presenting a vegetable side that barely heats the kitchen.

Spinach Rice You don't need to precisely measure out anything except the rice and cooking water. ¾ cup rice 4 oz spinach (about a third of a 12-oz package, just eyeball it) ½ cup shredded cheese (use more or less depending on taste. Choose a kind of cheese that melts well.) Salt and seasonings to taste Squeeze the juice out of the spinach and add enough water to make 1½ cups. Add salt to taste and cook the rice in this, whether you use a rice cooker or a saucepan. When the rice is done, add the cheese and stir until melted and mixed. Then stir in the spinach and seasonings to taste.

Not to go all Agatha Thrash on everyone, but whenever I use frozen spinach in anything, I try to put find some room in the recipe for the juice I just squeezed out. (Or sometimes I don't bother draining it at all) The spinach juice takes a lot of flavor away with it when you drain or wring it out. It's hard to eat your spinach when you've reduced it to blank fiber wads. 

I guess I also halfheartedly worry about throwing out water-soluble vitamins, but mostly I don't want my vegetables to taste like nothing. For today's recipe, the spinach juice adds a lovely flavor to the rice in a way that you simply cannot get by cooking the rice first and seasoning it later.

You may wonder why we bother draining the spinach at all if we're going to put the juice back in later. Well, I tried skipping that and got a soppy mess of rice-and-spinach glop. It kind of looked like the savory baked rice before we baked it. It was edible and I reluctantly didn't throw it out, but I didn't do it twice. With that in mind, the easiest way to drain the spinach is to stack another bowl on top of it and then squeeze it over the rice cooker. 

This is the only annoying part of the whole recipe.

Today, we're also getting some of the beef stock out of the freezer from the most expensive meatball pie I have ever made. You know, since we can't buy beef at any price until further notice. I didn't bother completely thawing it- I just let it half-defrost enough to gently mash the ice into the rice cooker. I figured it would melt in its own good time if I didn't mind the wait.

When that the rice is done, it's time to improve it with cheese. I like to mix the cheese in before adding the spinach so that I can be sure the rice has enough retained heat to melt it. (And I do like to add a lot of cheese. We're eating our vegetables, not punishing ourselves.)

I ended up adding "just a bit" more.

At this point, I like to try a small spoonful and make sure it has enough salt in it. If it doesn't, I add it with our spinach which has been patiently waiting next to the rice cooker. The spinach does want to stay in little hard clumps, so you have to kind of spoon-jab it to break it up.

So there we have it: cheese and spinach rice! It doesn't heat the kitchen any more than a single rice cooker, it's mostly good for you (I think), and it's low-effort enough for when it's too hot to lovingly cook anything. It may not be the most exciting thing anyone's ever made, but it's pretty darn good.