Oh. My. Goodness. This dish was delicious! Let me start by telling you about the quest for wild rice though. Originally, Mr. FBBQ and I went to Kroger (midwest grocery store). No wild rice. The next day I decided I would stop at Fresh Thyme (another smaller, more organic grocery store) but then ended up in a shopping plaza with a Target (if you don’t know what Target is shame on you) so I decided to see if they had wild rice. Of course, I had to buy 16 other things at Target. One cannot just go into Target and leave with only one item. That is law. Look it up. Unfortunately, wild rice was not one of those 16 things. Quest continues. Luckily, Fresh Thyme is on the way home. They did have wild rice. I should have just gone there in the first place. Would have saved a lot of Target money.
Now that we have wild rice (and some long grain brown rice because they were buy one get one half off), we also need sweet potatoes, Brussels Sprouts, cranberries, walnuts, Dijon mustard, maple syrup (thank you New Hampshire friends for the maple syrup used in this recipe!), sea salt and black pepper, balsamic vinegar, vegetable broth, some rosemary, and shallots.
Start by cooking the rice. This will take a while. I used a mixture of wild and brown rice and cooked it in vegetable broth.
While the rice is cooking you can make the glaze. In the bullet blender mix the Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, a dash of salt and pepper, and the cranberries. Blend it up until it is smooth.
To answer my question in the above caption, basically, yes. Shallots are just bulbous onions. They are milder and sweeter and a bit more delicate. But they are in the same family as onions (allium). So, cook the onion bulbs in a pan until they are browned.
Cook the Brussels sprouts in the vegetable steamer. Once they are done, cut off the stems.
Finely chop the rosemary.
While the rice is cooking and the Brussels sprouts are steaming, cut up the sweet potato and bake it at 420 degrees in foil in the oven for about an hour.
Now it’s time to put everything together! Start with the rice and top that with the shallots and Brussels sprouts. Add the baked sweet potatoes.
Toast the walnuts in the oven and add those to the dish. Sprinkle on some of the chopped rosemary. Top with the cranberry glaze and enjoy this dish (hopefully as much as I did)!
