Happy
Independence
Day
America
and
May God Bless Us

Okay, I admit it, I am one of those that swore I would never freeze cooked rice. Well, freezing it maybe, but certainly not eating it after it was frozen. Nasty.

I was wrong.

Whew. There, I said it. Take a note, jot down the date, whatever. -grins-

What made me change my mind? A blog post that I found: http://www.freezerdinner.com/recipes/freezing-rice/. I had first heard of Jenny Stanger, the author of the blog, as well as author of Fabulous Freezer Meals, by way of another author and blog site that I visit, http://everydayfoodstorage.net/ by Crystal Godfrey, they were making pizza!

I figured, why not try the rice again after all these years, maybe, just maybe it might not be as bad as I remembered.

It wasn’t.

When I make rice, I usually make about 4 cups at a time, depending on what we will be using it for that week, and how many people there are. I try not to make more than will be used in that particular week, because I hate the thought of wasting it, if it goes bad. Well, not anymore!

I love the thought of being able to just grab some rice from the freezer, already cooked, and just reheating it. So simple and so good. Sure, the garlic powder that I always add to it may have something to do with it being so good, but you get the gist of it. ;o) My only problem is that I do not heat or reheat in plastic. I don’t care whether plastic bowl or plastic bag, I just can’t do it. So, not a problem, I reheat it in a covered ceramic dish, which keeps all the steam in and makes it just right.

Yup, I have completely turned around my thoughts on it. I have tried to think of what on earth I could have done all those years ago to make the rice, well, yucky. I have no clue. I just remember not liking the texture of the rice. Who knows. All I can say is, thank you Jenny for putting up the post about the rice, because the next day I made 10 cups of cooked rice, and froze it. Figured worse came to worse, dogs would have a great treat to be added to their food if it didn’t turn out. But it did. Fabulously!

I started off putting some into freezer bags, and for larger portions (more people) those work great. But then I got to thinking, which is always dangerous, what about some smaller portions. But what could I put it in? I didn’t want to waste a quart sized bag for a little portion. As I was just kind of staring ‘out’ from the kitchen, my eyes caught onto my mini loaf pan hanging up on the shelves. Hmmm.

That might work. Hmmm. So, off to the shelves I went and grabbed it, as well as grabbing plastic wrap. Laid some wrap into one section of the loaf pan, put some rice in, and then put more, packing it down, wrapped it up and pulled it out, popping it into the deep freezer to test.

Perfect! So, I made quick work of the rest of the rice and now have not only family sized bags of it, but individual portions. Okay, really enough for 2 people, but still a lot smaller than a whole quart bag!

I put all the ‘blocks’ onto a jelly-roll pan, freeze them, and then throw them into a large container in the freezer. Pulled one out yesterday and it was delicious. Maybe there is something to be said for trying things more than once if you don’t like… like cooked spinach. Then again, some things are just better left like nature intended, raw.

Make your life a little easier, why not try to freeze some rice!