The Accidental Locavore was lucky enough to win a subscription to Mary’s Secret Ingredients, a “culinary surprise box.” A quarterly subscription service, I’m on my second box and it’s been a lot of fun and surprises! And if you read to the end of this post, you’ll have the opportunity to enter to win her upcoming fall box, which you’ll most certainly enjoy!
The summer box had something that I’ve always loved and never really hunted down — what the (now, sadly, closed) Vietnamese restaurant Pho Viet Huong in Chinatown called broken rice. This was actually billed as Delta Blue Rice Grits and Mary has written about making wonderful risotto with it.
I was more interested in seeing how it would compare with the extremely short rice I’d get in Chinatown as part of the lunch special. There was some leftover Thai style ground pork in the fridge which I thought would work well with the rice.
You cook the rice grits the same way as regular rice — twice as much water as rice, a little salt, bring it to a boil, cover and reduce to low for twenty minutes. Never fails. Except that night I forgot to turn on the timer! It was fine, a little overcooked, but not totally mush (which might be the desired texture for them as grits). I warmed up the pork and tossed it on the rice. It was great and will definitely inspire me to try some other Vietnamese dishes so I can serve the rice. I’ve already decided that rice bowls are going to be my go-to lunch this fall, replacing the ubiquitous salads and occasional souped-up (pun intended) bowls of ramen, so stay tuned and see what crazy combos come out of my kitchen!
Now for the fun part! Mary has kindly offered one of my readers the chance to get their own “culinary surprise box” (and if you’re not an obsessive foodie, please don’t be scared off, there are lots of wonderful goodies in each box and most of them don’t require much more than opening a package). Just click on this link by September 14th, to sign up for the drawing: http://eepurl.com/bxDnj5. The winner will be decided by September 16th and have a great box of goodies on their doorstep by the end of the month! Share and enjoy!
PS: If you don’t win and would like the box, it’s a very modest $25.99 — shipping included, but you should order soon or you might have to wait until December!
Getting the boxes has been a lot of fun!
What an interesting box of ingredients. I would love to try some of the dishes.