curried rice

Yet another meal construct from the brain-damaged lousy cook. A meal for two or more.

Ingredients (doh!)

Measured ingredients:
== 1 cup Thai jasmine white rice
== 2 cups homemade vegetable broth for the rice
== 1/2 tbsp curry

As much as I feel like using ingredients:
== Ragu double-cheddar cheese sauce, what I call “fake cheese”
== Canned diced tomatoes with celery, onion and garlic
== Frozen peas
== 3-4 cups water for the peas
== Butter (optional)
== Soy chorizo

Tools (more doh!)
== 7” (2 qt) non-stick pot with lid
== Plastic cooking spoon
== Measuring spoons and cups
== Normal metal spoons
== Serving bowls
== Scraper
== Cork trivet
== Deep Corelle bowl with a Corelle plate as a lid
== Hand towel
== Mexican Terracota Salsa Bowl with lid
== Rubbermaid food storage containers (>= two cups) with lids
== A person who can use two hands and with infinite patience (aka spouse)

This is a one pot construct. Being disabled (only one hand can be used) and living in a 35’ travel trailer means cooking with a physical limitation, a space limitation and very little cooking knowledge/talent/experience. A recipe for disaster. Prudence and care are king.

The meal, given my meager abilities, requires five steps.
== Step One: prep
== Step Two: cook the chorizo
== Step Three: cook the peas
== Step Four: cook the rice
== Step Five: serve the meal

Prep:
== Remove the homemade vegetable broth from the freezer and set it on the RV back bumper to thaw. The ants (aka true lords of the Earth) have yet to explore the new mountain (powdered soap on the stabilizer jacks is an excellent control measure). Set all ingredients on the limited counter space. Have the patient one help open the jar and can. Empty the cheese sauce into the salsa bowl. Have the patient one use the scraper to ensure the jar is empty. Lick the scraper clean (a tough job but a deserving one with all the hard work you are doing). Empty the diced tomatoes into a Rubbermaid container. Hard shaking is usually enough to ensure the can gets emptied and a great way to make a mess you get the honor of cleaning up.

Cook the chorizo:
== Put the entire package into the pot. Have the patient one squeeze out the last little bits from the package (an opportune time to wash the newly dirtied hand). Use setting four on the propane stove with the lid on the pot. Grease control is critical, a grease fire in an RV can destroy everything as fast as the Hindenburg burned (a nightmare I suffer every time I cook, damn over-active imagination). After proper heating, put the chorizo into a Rubbermaid container. I set the lids gently on the containers as flying intruder dissuasion agents.

Cook the peas:
== Put water in the pot to the level needed to cook the wanted amount of peas. That is approximately handle depth on my pot. Heat the water to boiling using setting six on the stove. Dump in the frozen peas (I love seeing the boil get squelched). The oil from the chorizo mixes in nicely. After proper heating, put the peas in the Corelle bowl, optionally add butter, cover with the plate, then further cover with the hand towel. The nasty air exchange must be made non-existent if possible. I measure two cups of the used water into a rubbermaid container, which I then freeze for future use.

Cook the rice, digression:
== Put before the actual step to avoid interrupting the flow of blither there. The homemade vegetable broth comes from my weekly crockpots, not detailed here (thanks Mirosa, for the post on the All-Clad crockpot). Each Rubbermaid container has a pre-measured two cups of broth, the typical amount needed for my two people ill-fated expeditions into culinary land. The containers are frozen, helping minimize the amount of unhealthy food I can put in the freezer and competing with the frozen vegetables for space. My current batch (only one left) had too much Habanero added, a too large Scoville rating can cause such distress while eating.

Cook the rice:
== I use a liquid-to-rice ratio of 2:1. Retrieve the mostly thawed homemade broth from the bumper (the New Mexico sun is such a great heating device), making sure there are no hitchhikers. Empty the container into the pot. Add the curry (something I forget to do too often). Heat the broth to a low boil using setting six on the stove, melting any residual ice in the process. Lower the setting to two (setting three can cause a boil over, experience is such a great teacher). Add the rice, stirring after the add to eliminate any clumps. Stir in the curry as well if it was forgotten earlier (curry coating vs. dissolved flavoring). Lid the pot, wait for the boil to return. Stir the rice again to kill the new clumps. Repeatedly lid and stir until the rice has the amount of moisture remaining that you like to have in your rice, the rice will plump nicely. If necessary heat without the lid to allow extra moisture to escape. My cook times are always under 15 minutes, so I babysit the pot for the entire duration, I hate ruining a batch of the expensive rice (experience again, I eat my mistakes no matter how burnt and sticking).

Serve the meal:
== Carefully place the pot on the trivet in the limited working space. Using metal spoons add cheese sauce, chorizo and diced tomatoes to the pot to fit your liking. Metal spoons waste a minimal amount of ingredients, especially if you use them for eating after serving (I grab the chorizo spoon). Stir vigorously while the patient one keeps the pot from visiting the floor. Portion the globby mess into bowls for eating. Cover the rice molehills with peas to make mountains. Enjoy the result, then spend hours cleaning up (gotta love one useful hand). Refrigerate all leftover ingredients, except the curry of course. It helps to have a spouse with a Depression-era mentality, “waste not, want not!”