Wild Rice with Cranberry and Walnuts

Years ago, I went to Cleveland for the week-end to get off campus. (Alright, alright, more than a decade ago.) At the time, I did not eat red meat, pork, or chicken. Having been a vegetarian for only a couple of years, my idea of dinner was a main course of french fries and cereal for dessert.

We stayed with a friend's family and in order to accomodate her guests, the mom went out to a specialty food store and brought back a bunch of gourmet vegetarian options, the likes of which I had never tasted. Wow, vegetarian food was good! It was so amazing to feel included at dinner time. My favorite dish that she brought back however, was a wild rice with cranberry and walnuts. I ate this cold every day until it was gone. For years I tried to recreate it with real cranberries. Recently, I learned that the real trick is to use dried cranberries.

I was at Wild Oats last week and saw a wild rice blend in the bulk section. While in that aisle, I also bagged up some walnuts and dried cranberries which I also use in my granola recipe.

Wild Rice with Cranberry and Walnuts
1C Wild Rice blend
2C water
salt (1/8 tsp. maybe?)
1TBL butter or olive oil (optional)
1/3C Cranberries
1/3C Chopped Walnuts

Put the first four items in a pot on the stove and bring to a boil. When it boils, turn the heat down to simmer, cover, and cook for 45 minutes. Throw in the last two ingredients, mix and serve. The hot rice will make the cranberries soften up perfectly. Now I usually just throw a handful of each in, so I am not exactly sure of the amount, because that is how I cook, a little of this, a little of that. But just eyeball it. If it looks like you are eating a few grains of rice with your cranberries, than add less cranberries, Duh!