a dinner favorite

So I have had a lot of fun dinner "successes" lately, but here's a recent favorite that is easy to make.

Homemade Rice-a-Roni

Melt 1/4 cup butter in a pan (I haven't experimented yet with reducing this, but you might be able to!). Put 1/4 lb. uncooked, broken spaghetti noodles in it (about a handful) and 1 cup rice. Saute in the pan for about five minutes - stirring - the noodles will brown.


Season with salt, pepper, and seasoning of choice. For me, I've done paprika and Lawry's with chicken, and paprika and a steak seasoning with venison (a beef substitute). Put beef or chicken broth (maybe a can?) into the pan. Put small cubes of raw steak/venison or chicken in as well as onions, green peppers, mushrooms, etc. Bring to boil; reduce to simmer. Simmer for 15 minutes or so. (Maybe check at 10 minutes to make sure there's enough liquid.)

With my chicken version, we had plenty of broth so it was more of a soup. With the venison version, we had much less broth, so we ate it with a fork. Good flavor, and an easy dish to make in a flash! It took me about 40-45 minutes to make it - but I had frozen meat I defrosted briefly in the microwave first.

You can make this with just the noodles, rice, and broth or add the meat and as many or few veggies as you'd like and make more of a meal out of it.

Enjoy!