When I was a little girl, my mother opened an ice cream store. My mother: the lovely soul who, until then, had cooked a thoughtful, well-balanced, nutritious and delicious meal for our family every night of the week. When she began working at the shop every day, my sister and I thought we had it made--Ice Cream Forever!! But then we saw what was really happening...
We had entered The Rice Age.
The Rice Age (now affectionately if not ruefully referred to as such) was the period of a few years during which Mom would cook once or twice a week, and Dad would play Leftover Creation Master on the remaining nights. Dad was great at two things: Kraft mac & cheese and RICE. So, naturally, all of our dinners included his areas of expertise. Mom's pot roast on Sunday? Then Monday and Tuesday involved a sort of rice and pot roast stew. Not bad. Mother was home to make pork tenderloin on Wednesday? Stir-fried pork with rice was a certainty on Thursday. OK. But then came nuked nuggets of pork (or could it have been pot roast?) in gravy with (the also omnipresent) frozen peas dished up over... you got it--Rice. Again. On Friday.
Visualize three years of this. Sure, Dad's creations got colorful: like the time he insisted that microwaved Green Giant Brussels sprouts in butter sauce were sure to be a hit....
And yet, nearly two decades later, I'm realizing that Dad's daring/thrifty character in the kitchen was perhaps--shocker--quite influential and inspiring. So here's to you, Dad (and you, Mom)! What can I make with half a bell pepper? I have plenty of ideas... and very few of them involve rice.
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