Mexican Rice

When I lived in Las Vegas there was this chain of Mexican grocery stores that carried THE BEST chips and salsa in the entire world. The salsa was homemade and the chips were thin and crisp. Every time we had a carry-in at work this woman named Karen would bring these chips and salsa, and they was always the first things I went for. We have a little Mexican grocery here in Murphysboro so I thought I would see if they had good homemade salsa. Uhhh, no. Everything I picked up was either very dusty or expired (one jar I picked up had expired in 2008) or both. I bought a bag of rice, though, just to try something, and that's the rice I used for this. The package says it's extra fluffy, and I guess it was.


Mexican Rice
4 c. chicken broth
8 oz. tomato sauce
3 T. cooking oil
2 c. uncooked rice
2 T. Tex Mex spice
1/2 c. onion, chopped
1/4 c. green pepper, chopped

In a saucepan, heat chicken broth and tomato sauce till hot. Add oil and rice to a large skillet. Saute rice over medium until golden. Stir in Tex Mex spice, add veggies and cook for a couple of minutes. Add rice mixture to broth mixture and bring to simmer. Turn heat to med-low, cover and cook 20 minutes. Unlid, stir around. Almost all liquid should be absorbed. If not, cover again and leave on burner another 5 minutes. Remove from heat for 5 minutes, keep covered. Serve.

After the 20 minute cooking time the rice looked way too liquid-y, but after stirring it around it looked a lot closer to normal. I kinda played this rice making by ear... the directions I just wrote out are not exactly the directions in the recipe I used. I let this cook about 10 minutes longer than the recipe called for. It tasted really great, though... there was this little hint of smokiness... did it come from toasting the spice mix, maybe, or toasting the rice?