Where are people adding whole grains to their diets besides bread?

KT wrote:
> Where are people adding whole grains to their diets besides bread?
oatmeal or kashi lean crunch for breakfast. whole wheat pasta, brown
rice for dinner. Bulgar pilaf for a change of pace.

--
Del Cecchi
"This post is my own and doesn’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions,
strategies or opinions.”

Or look in the Jewish or Kosher section of a supermarket for Kasha
in boxes, and make that, or use rice in its various forms including
wild, which is a grass and not a rice, and keep a look out for
barley packages, and lentil packages.

Lentil is a pulse (grain legume) crop, so it IS a grain! Used in
Indian and other cuisines regularly, and available as red and green,
amongst other forms. Can be made into a soup, or eaten as a side
dish both cold or warm, etc. Works well with curries too...

FWIW

RsH
----------------------------
On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 15:49:57 -0500, Del Cecchi
> wrote:

>KT wrote:
>> Where are people adding whole grains to their diets besides bread?

>oatmeal or kashi lean crunch for breakfast. whole wheat pasta, brown
>rice for dinner. Bulgar pilaf for a change of pace.
================================================== =====
>
Copyright retained. My opinions - no one else's...
If this is illegal where you are, do not read it!

KT wrote:

> Where are people adding whole grains to their diets besides bread?

I recently got converted to steel cut oats as a breakfast cereal. I boil
them with cinnamon, maple syrup, dried apricots and walnuts, along with a
pinch of salt. They neither look nor taste like rolled oats.

"KT" > wrote in message
news:N4i_e.4496$211.4406@trnddc08...
> Where are people adding whole grains to their diets besides bread?

Brown rice is great as a dinner side dish plain or herbed or added to soup.
A hot bowl of brown rice with milk, sugar, and butter makes a tastier
breakfast than oatmeal. Barley is a good side dish and very good in soup.
Some stores offer quick brown rice and barley which aren't quite as tasty
but trim cooking time from 45 minutes to 10. Wheat pilaf (ala), quinoa, wild
rice, and millet make nice dinner sides. Buckwheat groats (kasha) are nice
for dinner or breakfast and cook very quickly. Any rolled grain - wheat,
rye, oats, triticale, etc. - is good for breakfast porridge or can be
cooked into mush and added to bread (just use any oatmeal bread recipe).
Cornmeal is great for polenta, scrapple, and fried mush (yum! fried mush and
maple syrup!) but you have to search to find whole-grain cornmeal; it's
often degerminated to keep it from spoiling quickly.

You might like to go shopping at a natural foods co-op where there's often a
wide selection of grains both common and unusual, buy a scoopful of whatever
looks interesting, and google for recipes when you get home. Check out the
whole grain pastas too, while you're there.

If you get your whole grains from bread, be sure to read the labels
carefully. A lot of "whole wheat" breads are white bread colored brown, with
a sprinkle of whole grain added to justify "whole wheat bread" on the label.
As wholesome as "seven grain bread" sounds, it can still be dyed Wonderbread
with just a dusting of half a dozen other grains. If "wheat flour" or
"enriched wheat flour" is the first ingredient on the label (rather than
specifically WHOLE wheat flour), it's probably plain white bread
masquerading as whole grain.

Kathy

at Tue, 27 Sep 2005 20:38:05 GMT in <N4i_e.4496$211.4406@trnddc08>,
(KT) wrote :

>Where are people adding whole grains to their diets besides bread?
>

Why not make the basic grains part of the main course, or indeed the
central item, for lunch and/or dinner? Barley, wheat, rye, oats, buckwheat,
and quinoa grains as well as the standard rice and corn make all sorts of
great dishes. You can do variants on the pilaf theme with barley, wheat,
quinoa, and buckwheat. Meanwhile, you can make various risotto-like dishes
with barley, rye, and oats. The basic idea is simply to simmer the grains
in an appropriate amount of water and/or stock. Then you add to them
whatever you feel like adding - vegetables, beans, meats, you name it. Some
basic grains can form the bulk component of a stew and make good additions
to soups as well. (barley, wheat, and rye are generally the best choices
here). How they turn out is largely a matter of water ratios, cooking
temperatures, and whether you add the grain to the liquid when it's cold or
hot. Generally:

More water makes for a creamier consistency. The true grains - wheat,
barley, rye, and oats, work better with this method than other grains which
tend to turn into a lumpy, gummy mass. "More" is in the range of 3-4 cups
water per cup of grain. Barley takes the most (4) and wheat probably works
best with the least (3).

Less water makes a dry, somewhat fluffy consistency. Here, it's the grains
like quinoa and buckwheat which tend to turn out best. Quinoa you can
substitute almost straight across for long-grain rice. Buckwheat has its
own uses - especially in Eastern European recipes. Oats don't work well
with this technique and will become *very* solid and chewy. "Less" is in
the range of 1 1/2-2 cups of water per cup of grain. Buckwheat you really
need to use the lower range or else it sort of dissolves. Quinoa will take
more, but overdoing it (going to, say, 3 cups) turns it into a leaden lump.

Cooking at low heat, especially if the grain is added when the water is
cold, makes for creamier results and a softer grain. Oats and barley are
particularly successful cooked in this way. It's convenient to use a crock-
pot to do grains like this and makes for hearty, low-effort winter meals.

Meanwhile, cooking at high heat, like one does for rice where the water is
rapidly brought to a boil, makes for a fluffier texture, mandatory for
quinoa and buckwheat, also successful with wheat (which can be done either
creamy or fluffy) If you bring the water to a boil first, then add the
grain, you get the ultimate, fluffiest results. That's especially important
with long-grain rice and it also yields the very best texture for quinoa.

After that it's a matter of experimentation to find out which grains you
like and what cooking tactics produce the results you prefer.
--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)