cranberry apple brown rice and rosemary chicken

Sometimes you just don't want another sweet apple dish.  After at least 3 apple crisps, an apple pie, and apple brownies, OH and apple caramel cinnamon rolls (how could I forget those?), it was time for a change of pace.

Our trusty neighborhood Stonewall Kitchen provided just the inspiration.  Aside from putting out delicious little samples of their jams and things, Stonewall Kitchen provides free recipe cards in their stores with ideas for how to use their products in something more than toast.  I picked up a recipe for apple cranberry wild rice and adapted it to fit what we had in the pantry.  I didn't have Stonewall Kitchen's apple cranberry chutney, so I made my own version.

Apple Cranberry Chutney

2 tbs butter

1 medium onion, chopped (preferably yellow or vidalia)

2-3 medium apples, chopped

1/4 cup orange juice

3 ish tbs brown sugar

1 cup cranberries

salt and pepper to taste

I sauteed everything except the cranberries until the apples were soft and the onions translucent.  I added the cranberries and sauteed for a bit longer.  They cooked really quickly, which I didn't really expect.  I had never cooked with fresh cranberries before this recipe, but I bought some at the store like a week prior just because I'm crazy like that. 

Yes, buying fresh cranberries without knowing what to do with them qualifies as crazy in the often monotonous world of bed and breakfasts. 

Anyway, I had to add this chutney to some rice, right?  So, I followed the Stonewall Kitchen recipe a bit more here.  

Apple Cranberry Wild Rice

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup leeks, white portion, chopped

1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup rice, rinsed and drained (I had brown rice, but the recipe actually calls for 1/2 cup wild rice and 1/2 cup basmati)

2 cups chicken broth (I used water)

1/2 cup apple cranberry chutney

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the leeks and pecans and saute until the leeks are soft.  Ad the garlic and sautee for 1-2 more minutes.  Do not let the garlic brown.

Add the rice, chicken broth (or water and 1/2 tsp salt).  Cover and cook according to rice package directions.   If you're using two different rices, like in the Stonewall Kitchen recipe, add them according to their respective cooking times (aka the wild rice should go in about 10 mins before the basmati).  When the rice is finished cooking and all of the liquid is absorbed, turn off the heat and let the rice stand for 5 minutes.  Then fluff and add 1/2 cup of the apple cranberry chutney (or more, if you're like me). 

The chicken, I just cooked in a cast iron skillet in some olive oil, with whole smashed clothes of garlic and whole sprigs of rosemary to add flavor. The chicken was good, but the flavoring was pretty subtle. I'm trying to think of a way to get more flavor into it. It was based on a recipe for rosemary steak that our friend Charlie made when he visited...we need to get that recipe from Charlie, because it was much more flavorful than my chicken turned out to be.  

The peas and pearl onions came frozen in a cardboard box that I popped in the microwave for 4 minutes! :)