Thanksgiving Pumpkin Harvest Rice

I celebrated Thanksgiving this year with my boyfriend's family and had a great time!  We were assigned to bring a vegetable dish and I ended up bringing four different things because I'm addicted to cooking and baking lately (and it's fun to share it with other people).  I think this was my favorite of the things I made this time! It is a good alternative to stuffing. I found the recipe online and made a few changes as I made it.  I also have to admit I borrowed the top photo because mine was snapped quickly as dinner was already starting!

Ingredients

Serves 8-10 (large batch for Thanksgiving...would 1/2 this normally)

• 3 cups cooked brown rice (about 1 cup measured uncooked)
• 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
• 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 small honeycrisp apple, diced
• 1 small sweet onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 1 cup roasted butternut squash (optional)
• 2-3 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 6-8 Tbsp raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 2-5 Tbsp maple syrup (depending on how sweet you want it, I went on the high end for the special occasion)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp fine black pepper
• 2 Tbsp olive oil (optional)
• 1 tsp sea salt (to taste)

Instructions

1. Prepare brown rice - set aside in large mixing bowl.
2. Boil some water, add raisins, remove from heat, and let soak for about 10 minutes.  This will plump up and soften the raisins.
3. In a small bowl, combine the pumpkin, maple syrup, cider vinegar, cinnamon and black pepper.  Warm in microwave. Mix well. Add this mixture to the warm brown rice. Fold until well distributed.
4. Prep your apples and onions by dicing.
5. Sautee onions until softened and translucent (optional, you could leave them raw too).
6. Fold into the rice mixture: raisins, apples, onions, walnuts, olive oil, parsley, salt to taste and any other add-in's.
7. Other optional add-in's: nutritional yeast, truffle oil, cayenne, cubes of butternut squash or sweet potato.  I had some butternut squash left over from a different recipe so I added that in!
8. Serve warm or keep in warm oven until ready to serve. But do not over-heat. You want the apples to still have a crispness to them when you serve.