You might think it’s unhealthy to have a brownie first thing in the morning, but if you make your brownies with low-glycemic flours like buckwheat and cocoa powder (remember that anything dry and powdery counts as “flour”!) and include oats and eggs and bananas, your DIY brownie breakfast is going to be far more nutritious [...]
Although whole grains require longer cooking than their parboiled or refined counterparts, it’s hands-off cooking — you don’t have to stand over the stove while the grains quietly burble away. All you have to do is stir it once or twice. And if you put your grains in their water/broth a few hours ahead of [...]
It’s ironic that most “new” foods and ingredients are actually time-honored traditional ones that other people have never stopped enjoying … but that Americans either forgot about or never found out about to begin with. Buckwheat falls into both categories: it’s a traditional Jewish ingredient (better known as kasha, which is roasted buckwheat kernels), it’s [...]
Continue reading about Enjoying Cereal from a Pot, Not a Box
Roasted kale and popcorn are probably my two favorite snacks (or dinners, for that matter). They’re both crispy-crunchy and can be tossed with a variety of spices and umami-rich flavors: kale with tamari and sesame and popcorn with anything from Ethiopian berbere spice blends to Indian curry powders. My only problem is that I tend [...]
Continue reading about Kale: It Just Keeps Getting More Delicious!
True tortillas are hard to find. When I say “true,” I mean those thick, coarsely corny flatbreads that are made with just water, salt, and corn that’s been soaked in limewater. Limewater is an alkaline solution that transforms the niacin (vitamin B3) in the corn from one that’s normally bound to one we can absorb. [...]
Green bamboo rice, red Bhutanese rice, forbidden black rice, purple sticky rice…ironically enough, white is the only color that rice naturally isn’t. (White rice is any kind of rice that’s had the outer bran removed. The bran carries most of the color.) Fortunately, even though white rice is what’s usually found on American shelves, more [...]
Continue reading about The Colors of the Rainbow…All in a Grain of Rice
What do kasha and buckwheat have in common? They’re both triangular, gluten-free seeds that are treated as grains, and they’re both used to make everything from pancakes to pilaf. The only difference between them — and it’s a big one, flavor-wise — is that kasha is roasted buckwheat. I used to think I wasn’t keen [...]
Ancient grains — and seeds that are commonly referred to as grains — are all the rage these days, with many of them coming from faraway places like Ethiopia (teff) and the Andes mountains in South America (quinoa). Even old American favorites like sorghum and buckwheat are making a comeback…as well they should! The more [...]
I got the “rice browns” idea when I was flipping through a Spanish cookbook and reminiscing about the glorious tortilla españolas I’d had at the tapas bars in Spain. Unlike the Mexican corn-based flat tortillas, the Spanish version is a thick omelette consisting of eggs and fried potatoes. It’s deceptively and simply glorious. (And it’s [...]
