Wildly Time Consuming

I checked out another cookbook from the library, making my selection a little more carefully this time.

The Four Ingredient Cookbook
by Linda Coffee and Emily Cale

The cover says it's "as easy as 1 2 3 4".

Each of the 700 recipes (it's actually three cookbooks in one) has only four ingredients. That sounded really appealing. A long list of ingredients can be a bit intimidating.

I picked out a chicken casserole and went to the store for my four ingredients, one of which was wild rice. I got everything else I needed first, then found the aisle with rice. I was instantly lost in a sea options. Minute rice, five minute rice, white rice, brown rice, long grain rice, rice in boxes, rice in bags. There were at least a dozen different kinds of rice! Who knew? And you would think (or at least I did) that with all of those types of rice, wild rice would be in the mix. I mean, after all, it was in the four ingredient cookbook. How hard could it be to find?

I studied that aisle for a good ten minutes, reading every box, bag, and package carefully. Finally, I came across a small box of New Orleans style wild rice. I snatched it up and headed for the checkout, four ingredients finally in tow.

The recipe said to cook the rice as instructed on the package. I read over the box and saw that it would take about 30 minutes. Okay, that's not so bad, I thought. The rest of the preparations only take about two minutes and then I just stick it in the oven.

When I opened the box of rice and poured it in the water I discovered that there were powdery spices in the rice! How did that happen? That's not what I wanted. ... *light-bulb* Oh. New Orleans Style. That's what that meant. Bother. I left the rice simmering on the stove and went to dig through the pantry to see if we had any wild rice hiding in there. It took me a while to find, but low and behold, we did! And it was spice-free! Yay!

Then I read the instructions. It would be an hour before this rice was ready. Oh well,  I thought, there's no turning back now. Before long, I had two different pots of wild rice simmering. Apparently, one just isn't enough.

When the first one was done I waited for it to cool, then put it in a container and banished it to the refrigerator.

Forty minutes later I was finally able to put the casserole together and stick it in the oven.

It turned out pretty good, albeit two and a half hours after my start time.  But regardless of how time consuming it was it's going on the list!

What did I learn from this experience? 1 2 3 4 is not quite as easy as 1 2 3. And less ingredients does not equal less time.