Cheesy Broccoli Rice Bake

Tonight I'm afraid I may have bit off more than I could chew.

Today felt like a really long day, and the time I should've been spending napping (thereby gearing up for another busy--albeit four day--week) I spent trying more stuff I either found on or pinned to Pinterest. Perhaps the tastiest thing I made today was this cheesy broccoli rice bake.

2 cups uncooked long grain white rice

4 cups water (for rice cooking)

1 Tbsp. butter or margarine

1 large onion chopped

16 oz. velveeta cheese product, cut into cubes

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

2/3 c. milk

1/4 tsp. pepper

2 cups fresh broccoli florets

1 cup fine soft bread crumbs

1 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cook your rice. While your rice is cooking, melt 1 Tbsp. butter in a large skillet and cook your chopped onion until it is "crispy-tender" (whatever the heck that means--I just cooked it until it was translucent and a little brown around the edges). Add your "cheese product" (fresh shredded cheese works too), cream of mushroom soup (Josh hates mushrooms so I substituted cream of chicken), milk, and pepper. Stir until cheese melts and a sauce is formed. Add your cooked rice and broccoli and mix well. 

Coat a 9x13 glass baking dish with cooking spray, and pour your rice bake into the dish, spreading evenly. Combine your bread crumbs with 1 Tbsp. melted butter, and sprinkle over your rice bake. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the edges are bubbly. Enjoy!

Immediately after making this, I started cutting up my peaches to make peach jam. Earlier today I went down to the kitchen store in Harvard Sq. and bought 12 little 4 oz. jam jars, as well as a kitchen timer (that I think I really overpaid for). I also went to the grocery store with Josh and got some peaches and other miscellaneous things I needed to make dinner this week, as they (the peaches, I mean) were on sale and I have been hankering to try a new jam (yes, even though I jammed just the other day).

That is the point at which I bit off more than I could chew. Peeling and pitting the peaches was such a chore that I'm not sure I plan on making peach jam again any time soon, even though it tasted good! But the peach jam will have to be for another blog post. Right now I'm just hoping that my jam seals--I'm waiting on two jars that haven't made a sound in 45 minutes, so I'm probably going to try and re-seal them.

Sigh. I'm in a really weird mood right now. I'm not irritated or sad or angry or frustrated, I'm just blah. Maybe if these jams seal without me having to go reheat the water bath I'll get happier...  :/