A red rice goes nicely with Mexican food and in the past I’ve relied on this recipe, which is good. I wanted to kick it up a notch though and was making  a larger batch than normal for a wine tasting party so I found this version in one my old standby cookbooks, Desperation Entertaining!.  They said it serves 8 generously but we must not have had that many rice eaters last night, as it served 8 with TONS left over. So I would presume it can serve 12 easily as a side dish. I used a mild jarred salsa and the flavor was excellent.

• 3 cups rice
• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 quart chicken broth
• 1 16-ounce jar of salsa
• 1/2 tsp cumin

I used a 3 quart saucepan to cook this in and when I added the liquids it was just 1/2″ from the top so you might want to use a larger pan!

Heat the butter until it melts, then stir in the rice and cook until lightly browned, stirring constantly. Add the broth, salsa, and cumin and stir while bringing to a boil, then cover and cook 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork. If you’re not serving right away, you can cover with a tea towel then put the lid back on.  You can also make it ahead and then microwave to reheat.

Chicken,Rice and Artichoke Salad

My mom gave me this recipe. Things always taste better when she makes them but this still came out good!   I was missing one ingredient so did a substitution but I don’t think that was the critical piece. Not sure what she did different but I will try to figure it out!  For the record, I was missing barbecue sauce so used some Catalina dressing instead. Perhaps ketchup would have been a better choice. And it was still good–just not quite like it tasted when my mom made it!

The Dressing:

• 2 Tbs red wine vinegar
• 2 scallions, minced
• 1 Tbs grated fresh ginger
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup olive oil or canola oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix together and set aside.

The Salad

• 1 15 oz can artichoke bottoms, drained and chopped
• 2 cups cooked rice, cooled or cold
• 3/4 pound chicken breast, cooked and shredded
• 2 Tbs barbecue sauce
• 1 small red pepper, diced
• 1 scallion, minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• chopped fresh parsley to garnish

Mix everything but the parsley together. Pour the salad dressing over it and toss, then garish with the parsley.

This is great for a hot summer night, especially if you plan ahead and don’t have to cook the rice or chicken! It also works well for entertaining, which is how I used it. I cooked the rice and chicken the night before, then let them heat up to room temperature while I chopped the vegetables and mixed up the dressing. I was serving with a cream of broccoli soup and some fresh sliced tomatoes.

I got the soup ready to the point of adding the cream, then turned it down to way low and covered. I had the salad all mixed up ready to dress and let it sit while my friend and I visited. When it was time to eat, I tossed the salad with the dressing, stirred the cream into the soup, and sliced the tomatoes with some fresh basil, olive oil, and salt.   Very good and very easy!  And moderately healthy.  A winning combination.

I would have taken a picture but this was getting eaten about as fast as  I could make it!  Hard to guess on quantities so take the following as guidelines rather than a rules.   For about 12 slices from a small baguette:

• 4 – 5 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 -2 Tbs chopped fresh basil
• 1 -2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 1-2 Tbs capers chopped (or use some black olives)
• 12 thin slices from a French bread baguette

Mix the cream cheese and the basil.

Mix together the tomatoes, onion and capers.

Lay the slices of bread out on a cookie sheet and broil until lightly toasted on one side. Flip the pieces over and spread the cream cheese over the untoasted slices. Put back under the broiler a minute until softened. Top each slice with a spoonful of the tomato mix.

Devour.

When you’re entertaining, you need to balance money, time and taste.  I just had a grad night party for my eldest and I won’t say it was the cheapest I could have done, but it was reasonable and balanced the time I had available with the money I had available.

My daughter wanted a “simple” barbecue, that is hot dogs and hamburgers. But we were inviting lots of adults, including a few vegetarians and a few who eat no pork.   So first off, I bought all-beef hot dogs. I also decided to buy preformed hamburger patties to save time since we had a few other things going on around the same time.  I decided to add some chicken breasts and a few portobello mushrooms as well.  The hardest part was deciding about how many of each thing to plan on for 45 – 50 people. I figured two hot dogs per person and figured on about half hot dogs, slightly more than half hamburgers, half a dozen mushrooms, and a large tray pack of chicken breasts. (Note: I marinated the chicken breasts in my favorite chicken marinade and split them into two bags. I had one bag left over at the end so just froze them in smaller packs of 2 breasts per bag with some marinade in each bag.  I also had leftover hamburgers, still frozen, and leftover hot dogs, easy to throw in the freezer for later, so those will all get used up.)  We cooked a bit more than we ate last night but had hot dogs for lunch and green salad with sliced chicken and the leftover mushroom sliced up for dinner.

The menu I ended up with was:

• hot dogs
• hamburgers
• barbecued chicken breasts
• barbecued portobello mushrooms
• vegetarian baked beans
• potato salad (homemade and brought by my niece)
• pasta salad with veggies (homemade and brought by my niece)
• Chinese chicken salad (homemade and brought by my girls’ stepmom by request)
• fruit salad
• green salad

For appetizers we had:

• hummus and crackers (brought by a friend)
• chips and salsa (brought by a friend)
• veggies wraps (olives, red peppers, cream cheese, spinach leaves, grated carrots)
• spinach dip (bought at Costco) and French bread cubes
• pretzels and crackers and various dips and cream cheese (my youngest talked me into some raspberry chipolte sauce we sampled at Costco and I had some wasabi mustard dip I’d bought a while back)

And I bought a large sheet cake for dessert. This ended up at about $1 per person and was far better tasting and looking than I could have done! For smaller groups, I would have made dessert but for larger ones this works out great.

Oh I also made two large relish plates for the burgers which included a head of iceberg lettuce, sliced onions, sliced pickles, and sliced tomatoes. Ended up with leftover onions and tomatoes but those will easily get used up in various things or I can always just chop and freeze the onions.

I haven’t added up the cost but my main point was that you need to balance the time you have availalable and figure out what things might make sense to buy pre-made. While I normally make our namburger patties, for a large party I felt good about my decision to buy the preformed ones. Likewise the spinach dip. But I bought fresh fruit and made the fruit salad based on what looked good and ripe at the store (strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, watermelon, grapes and nectarines).  A neighbor was kind enough to loan me some fridge space (as well as outdoor table and chairs) so I made the salad up in the morning and refrigerated it till the party started. I did the same with the relish plates for the burgers.

Oh, for the bean dish I took this four bean casserole recipe in the crockpot and modified it to use vegetarian baked beans intead of the pork and beans and then left out the bacon. It was just as delicious as the original I think and might become my new standard since it’s a bit healthier.

Any of you have tips to share for large parties? This was fun but the largest one I’ve done that wasn’t a total potluck, although I did have some help as noted.  I don’t have an extra frig or freezer as some folks do so the neighbors’ offer of their spare frig space was a lifesaver. Same with the tables and chairs I borrowed. Oh, we did buy plastic table cloths to cover all the tables so they looked coordinated by the time we were done!  We bought a dozen helium ballons and tied a few to each table.  We lucked out with fantastic weather and I think the party was a success.