Sunday, June 26, 2011

Clover Rice

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reflecting on our farm's first year.  Life has gotten in the way this week and I won't be continuing the series of articles I have planned.  Don't worry, I'll come back to it (because I still have some fantastic giveaways in store!).  But for now I want to change gears and share some great recipes with you over the next few weeks.  Ok, some of the posts aren't about great recipes... but they're still good posts! 

Last winter we (ok, not me – it was Papa the Farmer) planted crimson clover in the vegetable beds as a cover crop.  So right now we have an abundance of these beautiful red flowers!  I know just enough about herbs to know that I have something really special here, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. 

So I did what any modern, self-respecting Farmlady would do.  I posted the question on Facebook!  And here are some ideas I came up with:

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Red Clover Rice:
I was a little bit unsure about this, but It turned out really good!  It was a bit sweet and it would make an interesting breakfast dish.  First I put a pot of brown rice on the stove to boil.  (I used 6 cups of uncooked rice and 18 cups of water).  In the meantime I went down to the garden and picked red clover blossoms.  (Note to self:  Good thing I had a visitor here to turn down the stove!  It took longer in the garden than I expected and I could have had a big mess!)

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When the rice was almost ready I added 1 1/2 cups of olive oil.  I think I probably should have added half that amount… or maybe even just a third or a quarter of that amount.  Anyway, I also added 3 tsp of salt.  Then I just poured the flowers in the pot:

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and stirred…

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The flowers got soft and sort of broke apart, but it gave the rice a lovely, slightly sweet flavor.  We ate the rice as a side dish the first day…

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The second day we rolled it up into sheets of seaweed  and made “sushi.”

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In a few days I’ll be posting instructions on how to make your own sushi, so be sure to check back!

2 comments:

  1. Sounds interesting and tasty! I wonder what it would taste like with coconut milk instead of olive oil. . .

    But as a side note: are you sure what you have is red clover? I think it's another variety of clover called crimson clover. I have heard that although this kind of clover is not toxic, neither does it have the same properties that red clover is known for.

    You can cross check this on google, because I'm not entirely sure ;-)

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  2. When I lived in Guyana we used to cook rice in coconut milk all the time and it tasted fantastic!!! I would add onions, garlic, finely chopped carrots, and black eyed peas. Mmmm!!! It's still a favorite of mine for taking to mommies with new babies.

    Funny you should mention about the clover, because somebody just told me today exactly the same thing. The package we planted the seed from said "red clover" but in fact, you are right. I guess somebody messed up the packaging??? Well, live and learn! =) Too late now because I already made everybody eat it! LOL! =) (It tasted kind of sweet)

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