I was hoping Annie would post the wild rice bread recipe Rusty was looking for. Then I remembered that Annie emailed me the recipe. After digging through old emails I found it! At the time Annie posted a beautiful photo and the bread looked great. Here is the recipe along with Annie's comments on the substitutions she made. Later in another post on the forum I believe she said the recipe came from Better Homes and Gardens. Oh - and Rusty - I know it seemed like it was just last year that Annie posted this recipe. Her email is from November 2010. Annie - please correct me if the source is wrong. Teresa, it's very good, savory and substantial, I think it would make an awesome grilled cheese sandwich. Here's the recipe I used. I never have wine, so I just used more chicken broth for that, and I never use bouillion or soup base because of the salt and I sure wasn't going to go buy some for a loaf of bread, so I used 1 1/4 cups of homecanned chicken broth. I made it in the bread machine on the dough cycle, added the wild rice when I got the "beep" for the add in, shaped the loaves on my half sheet pan and baked them on the pan. Wild Rice Bread 4-1/2 to 4-3/4 cups all-purpose flour 2 packages active dry yeast 1 tablespoon snipped fresh parsley or 1 teaspoon dried parsley, crushed 1 teaspoon snipped fresh thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed 1 cup cooked wild rice 1 cup water 1/4 cup dry white wine or water 3 tablespoons butter or margarine 2 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon instant chicken bouillon granules 1/4 teaspoon salt Stir together 2 cups of the flour, the yeast, parsley, thyme, and wild rice in a large mixing bowl; set aside. Heat and stir water, wine or water, butter or margarine, sugar, bouillon, and salt in a medium saucepan just until warm (120 degrees F to 130 degrees F), butter almost melts, and bouillon dissolves. Add water mixture to flour mixture. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double (45 minutes to 1 hour). Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide in half. Cover and let rise for 10 minutes. Shape each half of the dough into a 6-inch round loaf, tucking edges underneath. Place loaves 3 inches apart on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let rise in a warm place until nearly double (30 to 40 minutes). Using a sharp knife, cut an X in the top of each loaf. Bake in a 375 degrees F oven about 40 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when you tap the top with your fingers (if necessary, cover loosely with foil during the last 10 minutes of baking to prevent overbrowning). Remove bread from pans and cool completely on wire racks. Calories 76, Total Fat 1 g, Saturated Fat 1 g, Cholesterol 3 mg, Sodium 55 mg, Carbohydrate 14 g, Fiber 1 g, Protein 2 g. Definitely a keeper recipe, this would be really good with soup in the winter too. Annie

FOAS - I am familiar the book although it's been awhile since I've seen a copy. Many people considered it wacky even when the book came out. And by today's standards it is even more hilarious. It's a perfect book to read excerpts from at a party after a couple glasses of wine. The author is a "my way or the highway" kind of a guy, an authority on absolutely everything and I'm pretty sure he was 10 sheets to the wind when writing the book(s). He wasn't the kind of a guy you would try to have a reasonable discussion with. That said - I think he really believed everything he wrote. He wrote several other books including one titled "How to Live with a B*tch". Had to change the spelling - GW software alerted me that it had detected a "string of characters." The real book title contained the real word - long before the days of political correctness. The contents of this book are way off the charts also. It had some sex education tips if I remember correctly. Google it and see if you can find any excerpts. Another fun book to read at adult parties. You can't make this kind of stuff up! :-) Thanks for the laugh. I'd forgotten about Mr. Herter.

Truly "wild" wild rice is more a brown color, similar to grass seed, maybe a shade darker. Cultivated wild rice is very dark brown, smooth and shiny. trsinc, here is my wild rice soup recipe, there are dozens of different ways to make wild rice soup. I am a Minnesotan, and we love this one! Linda's Minnesota Wild Rice Soup 2T butter 1/4c chopped onion 1/2c flour 4c chicken broth 1-1/2c cooked wild rice 1/2 tsp salt 1c diced chicken or ham 1/2c grated carrot 1c half and half 1T dry white wine 1/2c slivered almonds Melt butter in saucepan, saute onion til tender. Whisk in flour then gradually add broth. Cook, stirring constantly until thickened. Add rice, salt, chicken, and carrots. Blend in cream and wine, heat to serving temperature. Garnish with slivered almonds. Linda

update on tonight's dinner: early this morning I decided to eschew the pears and serve a spinach salad with pine nuts, crisp crumbled bacon and a drizzle of Vidalia onion dressing. I didn't do bacon dressing because one guest eats no pork products, so having bacon pieces on everyone's salad but his solved that dilemma very nicely. I also found beautiful fresh haricots verts, which I am steaming and tossing with a squeeze of a lemon. This way I get spinach and beans, which makes me very happy :-) Mtnrdredux, for your retro dinner I hope someone brings green bean casserole....I adore it!