The best dinner I've made in a long time...

I made an amazing dinner tonight, it was super easy and delicious. I cut the recipe in half and it worked out perfectly. I will probably make the rice as a side dish for another dinner, it was that good! I had regular cooking rice so I cooked it in my rice cooker, but it's all the same. I didn't have a green bell pepper so I left that out. We had ours with roasted asparagus and cranberry sauce.

Ingredients

4 Cornish game hens, about 1 1/4 pounds each, giblets removed and discarded

Salt and ground black pepper

2 tsp olive oil

1/2 cup minced scallions

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp dried thyme

1 cup instant brown rice

1 1/2 cups chicken broth, divided

1 cup sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained and chopped

1 small green bellpepper, chopped

Prepared cranberry sauce, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Rinse hens inside and out and pat dry. Season the hens, inside and out, with salt and black pepper. Place hens in a large roasting pan and set aside.

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add scallions and garlic and saute 2 minutes. Add brown rice and thyme and stir to combine. Add 1 cup of the chicken broth, cover and bring mixture to a simmer. Allow rice to cook for 3 minutes then add the sun-dried tomatoes and bell pepper. Season, to taste, with salt and black pepper.

Remove from heat and spoon rice mixture loosely into cavity of hens. Pour remaining 1/2 cup of chicken broth into bottom of pan. Place hens in oven and immediately reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until juices from thigh run clear when pierced with a fork, basting every 15 minutes with the pan juices. Remove the hens from the oven and transfer to a platter. Pour the pan juices over top and serve.

The weather here is finally getting AWESOME! The flip-flop tan has started (I will spare you a picture of my foot, gross!). We woke up this morning to a heavy fog in the backyard.. and by 9am it was sunny and clear.