Picnic Rice Salad

If you're ready for a new salad to take to bbqs or picnics, I think you will love this one.  It's light, thanks to the rice...unless you count the bacon grease in it.  It's refreshing, thanks to the vinegar and it's fresh thanks to all the veggies.  It's also great if you need to make something gluten free, dairy free or vegan (you can omit the bacon).

Picnic Rice Salad
4 cups combo of cooked brown rice and wild rice.  Don't overcook!
4 Slices cooked bacon, cut into chunks, reserve 2 Tbl bacon grease
1/2 red onion, diced
Handful of mushrooms, chopped
2 Cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Cup Kalamata Olives, chopped
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/3 Cup walnuts, chopped
1 Can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
White Wine Vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
****these ingredients are just estimates, change according to your tastes, add more or less of something****

Place rice into large bowl, set aside.  Set chopped bacon aside.  Saute onions, mushrooms and garlic in 2 Tbl. bacon grease until softened and tender.  With the rest of the bacon grease, make a bowl out of tin foil and pour the rest of the grease into the foil bowl.  You can let this sit on your counter and cool and then throw it away.  Great solution to the bacon grease conundrum!

Pour sauteed veg mixture (and any of the bacon grease in the frying pan) into the rice.  Add the chopped Bacon, Kalamata Olives, pepper, walnuts and artichokes to rice.

Make a vinaigrette using a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 ratio if you prefer, of olive oil to white wine vinegar.  I prefer the 2 to 1, I like the tang of vinegar.  I would say you need approximately 1/3 to 1/2 cup of vinaigrette.  Just taste as you go.  Salt and Pepper to taste, let cool in fridge before serving.

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading.

Heather