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We all know that brown rice is de rigeur if you're into healthy eating. Just as you wouldn't dream of comparing Wonder Bread to the dense fiber loafs designed to be a culinary colonic, to consider brown rice in the same class as white rice or (shudder) Minute Rice is just fooling yourself. I know all about how great brown rice is for you, all the selenium and fiber, all of the studies that show that women who eat whole grains tend to have no problem maintaining healthy body weights, blah blah blah. It's awesome, but given that I live in the Midwest, if I want brown rice, I'm going to have to make it myself, and despite several attempts and methods to whip up a pot of the nutty goodness, I come up with failure. Even my fancy rice cooker that is supposed to be idiot-proof? I ended up with brown rice that could pass for pea gravel. It's hard to eat healthily when you've broken all of your bicuspids. But! On a trip to Trader Joe's, I spotted a box of frozen pre-made brown rice. T.J.'s has already solved my oatmeal dilemma by selling perfect pre-made steel-cut oatmeal in frozen little cylinders, oatmeal that you'd swear came from your Irish grandmother who woke up at 4:00 a.m. to stir the oats for several hours (can you tell that my attempt to make steel-cut oatmeal from scratch also met with severe failure?). So I trusted them to not give me horrible little hard bits of badness mixed in with my stir fry. Just pop out of the freezer and into the microwave and zap for three minutes and the rice came out absolutely perfect. If I hadn't made it myself, I would have sworn that it came from the carefully watched pot of Martha Stewart. And given that each box has three bags, I can already tell that my rice cooker is going to start gathering dust. Viva le fibre! 7 CommentsLeave a comment |
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The first time I made brown rice in my lo-fi rice cooker, I wound up with brown rice muesli. Unpleasant. Brown rice takes more water -- about 2c of water to 1c of rice (whereas short grain white, my favorite, requires 1 and a bit more (about 1 1/3). Or you can use the knuckle method (rest fingertip on rice, pour in water up to first knuckle). I also unplug the cooker and remove the pot (otherwise, the hot plate at the bottom, which is supposed to keep the rice warm, keeps cooking it until it gets kinda dried out).
The nice thing about the rice cooker is that you can throw some lentils or adzuki beans in for a little protein and variety.
Three minute rice, though, sounds awfully convenient.
My new trick with brown rice -- and this is brand spankin' new cause I did it for the first time last night -- is to make, like, 9 times more than I need. When it takes 40 minutes to make rice, you don't want to being doing it twice a week.
I also enjoy Uncle Ben's prepared brown rice. I think its called Bistro Express. Be careful to buy the wholegrain brown, and not one of the other varieties which are undoubtedly tasty, but chock full of sodium, unlike the wholegrain brown which doesn't have anything else in it. Its shelf stable, somehow, and you just nuke it, and its ready in two minutes. This is when I feel lazy or I'm in a hurry.
Otherwise I do what Sarah said and cook lots. Alton Brown has a good recipe for Baked Brown Rice, which I greatly enjoy. It's not quick, but its fairly foolproof, and you don't have to babysit it. It makes lots. The recipe is available on the Food Network website.
OH! Fab stuff. That frozen oatmeal sounds ace. I knoooow I should be eating oats for brekkie but who can be arsed stirring by the stove at 7AM!?
TJs also has microwaveable brown rice that's basically cooked then vacuum sealed. So tasty and so simple. Love the Trader Joes.
I took a cue from TJs and started making huge portions of brown rice and freezing the leftovers myself. Mostly, I'd use the resulting stuff by defrosting it and then stir-frying, but it was really a miracle for me and super helpful to have pre-made brown rice accessible! Good luck!
That frozen brown rice is the one guaranteed way for Kevin to get whole grains in. I haven't seen the steel cut oats though, I'm going to have to swing by there tomorrow and find that!