Dinner Fail.

Several months ago, I jumped in to the deep end with the Instant Pot mania that has taken over our region. I embraced it without hesitation and have had many successes to speak of.  Even Jeff is most impressed when I put in a bunch of uncooked ingredients and voila!, in no time, we have a yummy dinner and no pots or pans to clean. It's like magic.

This past week I found a recipe to make that had the most amazing comments describing it..."Best dish ever!"..."Everyone loves it!"....."So fantastic!!"  "This one's a winner!"  and "So easy!"  It had all the ingredients (chicken!, broccoli!, rice!, cheese!...yum, right?) that my family loves to eat and sounded like a no-brainer to make on a busy weekday.

So I loaded all the ingredients in to my magic machine and set the manual button for the required time.  It was so easy and so fast.  I felt like I was winning at this dinner thing.  The table was set, the family came home and the instant pot beeps it is finished turning my pile of ingredients into a fabulous concoction. 

As I go to scoop out a heaping spoonful I notice the rice is not cooked. Not even a little. Every other thing looks cooked perfectly, but the rice looks like it just came from the bag.  It's crunchy and the pieces are tiny; many, many tiny pieces.  Way too many to take out of the dish.

What can I do?   What options do I have with a family ready to eat dinner?  The only thing that comes to mind is to serve it anyway.  Everything else is cooked, it's just the rice that isn't.  Can't the majority on this be enough?  So yes, I gave my family uncooked rice to eat.  And not just a little of it, but a lot of it!

Each person in their own way, took a bite, made a face and then commented that next time I should cook the rice.  It was very funny.

Here's the thing...the dish was yummy!   We can all imagine just how much better it will be with cooked rice.  I've since tried to figure out where I went wrong and have come to the conclusion that using brown rice was the issue.  Brown rice takes a lot longer to cook than white rice. Even the easiest dishes can be a problem in the wrong hands.  Next time I will get it right.