Pumpkin Rice

Like I said, I'm on the look-out for pumpkin recipes to try with all the many many bags of frozen pumpkin puree that are in my apartment right now. For the most part, "being on the look-out," for me, involves quite a bit of googling. Not having grocery shopped since I got back from spring break, I realized that pretty much my entire options for dinner were pumpkin or rice. Not being a big fan of either on its own, as I expect most people aren't (Never mind that most people do seem to like rice in and of itself. That is something I have never understood), I googled "pumpkin rice" and. . . Voila!

From Meals Matter, a recipe for Good-For-You Pumpkin Rice by user kittychic2.

1 cup Brown rice or couscous
1 tsp Butter
1 can Low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup Canned pumpkin
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Each nutmeg & cloves
1/4 cup Onion minced

Precook rice or couscous with butter. Season to taste. After rice cooks, stir in broth, pumpkin and spices and let come to a simmering boil. Reduce heat to low and let cook for 20-30 minutes. Add onion to taste.

I didn't have cloves or onion, so I just skipped those parts. I'm sure it would be even better if I hadn't, but I wouldn't say they're necessary.

It's simple, but really quite good - unlike the other top Google results for pumpkin rice, which seems either hugely complicated or not really good dinner material.

I was planning on having this as my complete dinner, because it was all I had, but Rhett decided to come over for dinner. When I told him I was going to make pumpkin rice, we had this conversation on Gmail:

Rhett: that sounds....interesting

me: well then, prepare to be interested

Not being much of an adventurer in the food area, he proceeded to go to Safeway, buy some chicken, and make us lemon chicken for dinner (although he did say he actually liked the pumpkin rice once he got here!).

This was a good, easy pumpkin recipe that I may be using more in the future to use of my stock of pumpkin. I've only got another month or two in this apartment, and I may be eating pumpkin for every meal between now and when I have to clean out the fridge to move.