When I became a vegetarian in 1986, there wasn't the abundance of fake meats that there is now. Since I've never been a big tofu fan, this made for tough meal-planning. I ate a lot of Garden Burgers. A lot of cheese sandwiches. Some salads. That was my diet and I was fine with it.

But there was another food I ate quite a lot of... rice.

Specifically, Farmhouse Mexican Rice.

I was (and still am) a massive fan of Mexican food. I needed a substitute for meat in Mexican dishes. One day I goofed around with making enchiladas with Mexican rice and was soon using it for everything. On tacos. On nachos. On taco salads. Everywhere. It was a miracle for food diversity for me...

I've been eating this same box of rice for decades.

Until I couldn't any more.

Last year I found that I couldn't find it at my local grocer. Nor could I find it at non-local grocers. Or online. In a panic I went to the Farmhouse website and saw that it was still there. I just couldn't buy it anywhere. Via Googling I found outdated rice some places, but also found that other people weren't finding it as well.

Pretty sure Farmhouse has discontinued it.

Which is awful for me.

I've found many Spanish Rice mixes (which are not the same)... and a few other brand Mexican rice mixes... but none of them are what I'm looking for.

So now I've been working with recipes to try and find out if I can make it myself. Which is tough because the Farmhouse mix has ingredients which you never find in regular recipes, and that means that they're likely contributing to the taste in subtle ways that I can't figure out. Yet.

One day I'll crack the code. At least I hope so.

In the meanwhile, I'm really missing the Mexican foods that I can't make the way I used to.

It's Koogle all over again.