There are so many lovely grains to choose from: purple barley, ivory teff, red quinoa, golden polenta, green wheat. But it is simple brown rice that forms the basis of most of my meals and fills my belly with happiness.
I like organic short grain brown rice, but try other varieties too!
Perfect Brown Rice
1 cup short grain brown rice
1 1/2 cups water
pinch sea salt
- You must soak the rice first. Add brown rice to a glass bowl, and add filtered water to cover by two inches. Let stand at least four hours, up to overnight (in the fridge).
- Drain off soak water and add to a saucepan. Cover with 1 1/2 cups filtered water. Bring to a boil, add a pinch of sea salt, cover, and lower heat to very low. Simmer for half hour. Remove from heat and let stand about half hour, or longer.
- Rice is best fresh, but is also good for a few days in the fridge. Makes about two cups cooked rice.
soft and fluffy
My best friend in college bought a rice cooker just so she could make wonderful sticky rice. She’d make a batch and we would just eat it out of the cooker with our fingers all night long.
And now I eat brown rice all the time! I’d never heard about soaking it…will have to try. =)
Ooh I second the rice cooker! You can use it for pretty much any grain. But don’t use it to make steel cut oats. I tried this one, and it was a disaster all over the counter. I think my cooker cost me $20, and we make at least 2 or 3 meals in there every week. It has a steamer basket, so you can put tofu, beans, veggies, etc in the top, grains in the bottom, and it cooks up the whole meal.
I brown the grains first on the stove, no oil, then cook in the rice cooker. I use mostly millet and long grain brown rice. Simple and yummy! You can add stuff to it in the cooker too. For the millet I add chopped dates. For the rice, sometimes a can of tomatoes, spices, use your imagination!
I love the idea of using dates with millet! I’ve toasted quinoa before not not millet- what a great idea! Thanks for reading