Revenge of the Multi-Tasked

Per Eric's request, I'm planning a chicken, broccoli, rice casserole for dinner tonight. And, as you know, one of my mantras to successful cheffing is to prep as much as possible in advance. To that end, I thought I'd tackle the 50-minute brown rice while I was reading my morning work email.

• All was well. Bring to boil, simmer on low for 50 min.
  
• The timer went off.
• I obeyed with a quick check and assessed that it needed another five minutes.
• Reset timer and returned to email.
• The timer went off again.
• I obeyed with a quick check and assessed that it was done, turned the stove knob and back to work -- an shining example of successful multi-tasking.

Except -- about 5 minutes later, I smell something burning. Turns out I had turned the knob to high instead of off. Duh. Thank goodness I'm only 10 feet away working at the kitchen table. I salvaged the top, unadhered portion of the rice. But we'll have to see if those scorched flavors make their way into my casserole. We'll also have to see if I am ever able to get that rice unstuck from my pan. Maybe it's karma for me subbing brown rice in where the recipe calls for wild rice. Whatever -- I am in pantry patrol mode this month, wherein I found a bag of perfectly good brown rice, so I'm using it dammit. Anyway, I sure hope the rest of this cooking adventure turns out OK.