Wild Rice and Cranberries

Wild Rice With Dried Fruit
2 cups long-grain wild rice
6 cups water
1/2 cup dried currents
1/2 cup dried cherries or cranberries
1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds
1/2 cup roasted hickory nuts chopped
1/2 cup water
salt to taste

Wild rice is expensive but has a wonderful crunchy texture and nutty flavor. If you wish, cook 1 cup of wild rice and 1 cup of brown rice separately, then combine them with the fruit and seeds. Cook wild rice according to package directions, or until ends break open like flowers, about 1 hour; drain. Add wild rice with cherries and pecans. Add 1/2 cup water and salt. Cover pan; cook mixture over low heat or in
300-degree oven 15 minutes. Stir before serving.
Yield: serves 8.

Berries & Wild Rice
1 cup wild rice
1 cup fresh cranberries
3 cups water
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup fresh raspberries2
1/2 cup maple syrup3
cinnamon to taste (approx. 1/2 teaspoon)

Cook rice and cranberries in water until rice is done. Take rice off heat and let sit for about 5 minutes (until all the water is soaked up by the rice). Mix in the remaining berries, maple syrup, and cinnamon. Can be eaten warm or cold.
1. If fresh cranberries are not available, substitute 1/2 cup dried cranberries.
2. If fresh raspberries are not available, substitute whole frozen raspberries. Avoid raspberries frozen in any kind of syrup. 3. You must use real maple syrup - not syrup that has been "flavored." Real maple syrup is a common addition to Native American recipes.

Sunflower Seed Wild Rice Pilaf
4 cup chicken broth
1 cup wild rice, rinsed well
1 3/4 cup wheat pilaf
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup cranberries, dried
1 scallion bunch, thinly sliced
1/2 cup Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 zest of 2 oranges, grated
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 black pepper, freshly ground

In a medium saucepan, bring broth to a boil. Add wild rice to boiling broth. Bring back to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 50 minutes or until rice is tender. Do not over cook. Remove to a large bowl. While the rice is cooking, in another saucepan bring about 2 1/4 cups water to a boil. Stir in the pilaf, cover and bring back to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 15 minutes, or until pilaf is tender. Remove from heat, let rest 15 minutes, and add to the (cooked) wild rice. Add remaining ingredients and toss well. Serve at room temperature.

Cranberry/Wild Rice Stuffing
1/2 c Wild Rice, uncooked
1 c Water
1/4 c Raisins, dark or golden
5 Green Onions (scallions), chopped
1 tb Vegetable Oil
1/2 c Celery ~or- Fennel Bulb, chopped
1 c Cranberries, fresh or frozen
1 ts Orange Rind, grated
1/2 t Dried Thyme

Put the wild rice in a saucepan. Add the water and raisins and cook over medium heat for 1 hour, or until the rice is tender. Drain Sauté the onions and celery (or fennel bulb) in the oil until tender. Add the cranberries, orange rind, thyme and rice. Stuff into two Cornish hens or a 3-pound chicken, or use with turkey breast. Bake in
a 350-degree oven for 1 hour, or until the poultry is done. Wild Rice And Toasted

Sunflower Pilaf
1 cup sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons unsalted butter; melted
3/4 teaspoon dried thyme; crumbled
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup fresh cranberries chopped
1 large onion; halved lengthwise,
and sliced thin lengthwise
1 yellow bell pepper; cut julienne strips
1/4 cup olive oil
2 1/2 cups wild rice - (abt 1 lb); rinsed well in
several changes of water and drains
4 1/2 cups chicken broth

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small baking pan toss the sunflower seeds
with the butter, the thyme, and the salt until they are coated well and toast them in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes, or until they are crisp and fragrant. In a flameproof casserole cook the onion and the bell pepper and cranberries in the oil
over moderately-low heat, stirring, for 5 minutes, or until they are just
softened, and with a slotted spoon transfer them to a bowl. Add the rice to the casserole and cook it, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Stir in the broth, heated to boiling, and salt and pepper to taste and bring the mixture to a boil. Bake the mixture, covered, in the middle of the oven for 40 minutes. Stir in the onion mixture, bake the pilaf, covered, for 30 minutes more, or until the rice is tender and the broth has been absorbed, and stir in the sunflower seeds.
This recipe yields 8 servings.

Stir Fried Wild Rice With Sunflower And Sun Dried Crnberries

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons finely-minced onions
1 tablespoon azafran
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1/4 cup sun-dried cranberries
1 1/2 cup cooked wild rice
Salt; to taste
Freshly-ground black pepper; to taste

Heat sauté pan. Add olive oil and sauté minced onions and azafran until translucent. Add sunflower seeds, mushrooms and sun-dried cranberries and cook until mushrooms are cooked through. Add cooked wild rice and stir-fry until rice is hot and tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. This recipe yields 2 servings. Comments: This dish is a dish that can be served year round, even during the holidays. It has a variety of flavors. The recipe is a great accompaniment for meat, fish or poultry dishes.

Wild Rice With Cranberries
1 tablespoon oil
5 medium shallots peeled and finely chopped
2 single celery ribs; finely chopped
1 cup wild rice; rinsed
1/3 cup toasted sunflower seeds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
2 teaspoon aniseed
1/4 teaspoon sea salt; or to taste
4 cup water
1 teaspoon finely chopped orange zest or grate


In a heavy 2-quart saucepan, heat the oil. Add the shallots and celery and sauté for 1 minute. Add enough water to equal 3 cups and bring to a boil. Stir in the rice, dried cranberries, aniseed, and salt. Return to the boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer until most of the grains have butter flied and almost all the liquid has been absorbed, about 50 minutes. Let stand, covered, off heat for 10 minutes. If there is still liquid left in the bottom of the pot, lift out the rice with a slotted spoon. Stir in toasted sunflower seeds and serve
Yield: 6 servings

Squash Blossums Anishinaabeg Style

1 egg yolk
2 cups ice-cold water
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 2/3 cups white flour

Whip the egg yolk and baking soda into the water in a large dipping bowl. Sift in the flour, mix well. Batter should be thin, rather watery, run easily off a spoon. It should be used no more than 10 minutes after made, i.e. still bre quite cold when it hits the frying oil. Dip blossom, twirl to coat thoroughly, Turn after 1 minute and
fry 1 minute longer, lighter gold than the cornmeal coating in the Pueblo version. Sprinkle with sifted powdered sugar while still draining and hot from the oil. Keep warm in oven. Alternatively: omit sugar, serve with small dipping bowls of or berry syrup.
Traditionally, the flowers were used in soups and stews in 2 ways. In the commonest, they were thickeners -- put in at the beginning, the fragile flowers cooked away into the broth and had no individual identity. Put in near the end, they were heated through, softened a bit (especially th female blossoms, which have tiny squashes or
pumpkins forming at the stem end) as a sort of vegetable -- although the rest of the soup or stew was likely to be full of dried berries, so maybe I should say as another fruit.
Up north here, these fritters were traditionally made with pumpkin and squash flowers too. No chile or cumin was used, and about 1/2 tsp (or no) salt. A batter of flour would be more likely to be used than cornmeal if there was a good trade supply of it, because although some corn was raised, it was nowhere near as much as in the southwest, and a bit farther north of the Great Lakes, the growing season is too
short for curcurbitae.
The blossoms were most often eaten as a sweet with maple syrup or sprinkled with maple sugar -- and that's still a great way to eat these fritters, too -- blossom-beignets. You can also sprinkle them with sifted powdered sugar, as with New Orleans beignets.