Comforting Food. Again.

OK, Back to it.  This is what I cooked tonight, making use of the contents of the 'fridge... After using it as an accompaniment for my Fruity Spiced Chicken last night, I had loads of leftover brown rice sitting in a box, waiting to be used, so that had to go somewhere.  Rootling around in the depths of my brain, I decided that it would be just the ticket for a vegetarian 'baked rice' recipe.  So I dug some garlic butter out of the freezer (I always make masses at a time and freeze it in portions to use, not only for more garlic bread, but also in more general cooking),  and got to thinking about mushrooms and what sort of binding sauce would be good.  Obviously, you can just use regular butter and add in a few cloves of minced garlic when you fry the 'shrooms, then add some chopped herbs to the dish later, but the ready-homemade-and-frozen garlic butter plan is, I beseech you, truly the way forward.

Cheesy Mushroom Rice

700g cooked brown rice
50g garlic butter (with herbs, if possible)
400g mushrooms
40g butter
40g plain flour
1 tsp English mustard powder
500ml milk
200g Cheddar cheese

Melt the garlic butter in a large frying pan and cook the mushrooms until very brown and what I call 'squeaky'; there should be no liquid left in the pan at all and you will know just what I mean when the mushrooms, almost, seem to squeak  Meanwhile, make an all-in-one white sauce by putting the butter, flour, mustard powder and milk into a saucepan and, whisking continuously, bring it all to the boil.  Turn the heat down and simmer briefly, then remove from the heat.  Add half the grated cheese and stir well until it has melted into the sauce completely.  Put the cooked rice into an oven dish, add the mushrooms and mix the cheese sauce in thoroughly.  Top with the remaining cheese and bake at 200°c for 30 minutes or so, until the top is somewhat crisp.

It was really, really nice - I cannot sufficiently explain how much I wanted to eat, well, ALL OF IT.  This one is definitely a keeper...

Cath xx