food & drink

How to Make Brown Rice (Without Measuring)

September 21, 2012

Last week: Beans. This week: Rice. Sounds like the first year of my marriage.

But seriously. Rice is remarkably easy to do. So why doÂ we just continue to use boil-in-bag (which serves, what, one sixteen-year-old?) instead of making it from scratch?

For many years I avoided rice because I wouldn’t remember how long it took to cook, or thought I’d burn it, or just didn’t want to bother. Even after I felt confident with white rice, I still shied away from cooking brown rice (which I prefer) because I wasn’t sure I would cook it all the way or didn’t want to wait forever.

Actually, I don’t know if it was any of that at all. But for some phantom reason, I never wanted to bother with rice.

Then one day I discovered Saveur‘s technique for “perfect brown rice”. Though it had rice and water amounts listed, I quickly realized there was no real need to measure either of them. And with the technique having a degree of difficulty on par with boiling noodles, I knew the rice preparation could go on in the background while I prepared the rest of dinner. Without me having to fuss with it. That’s a win, my friends. But would it work?

I’m happy to say that it does. And elated to share it with you!

Saveur’s Brown Rice Method (Boil It!)

This is stupid easy, you guys. If you make rice, you’ve gotta try it.

You’re going to need a pot, some water, and some brown rice. Simple, right?

Put a generous amount of water in the pot and boil it. Saveur says to use 12 cups. I can’t be troubled to measure. So I fill my large-ish pot 2/3 full. It’s fine.
Rinse brown rice in colander or sieve. Just give it a good rinse. Use however much you want. If you’re feeding a family of four, first time around, think “about a cup”. If you want more, make more. I’m telling you, this method is awesome. No need to overthink it.
Once water is boiling, add the rice. Set a timer for 30 minutes. (Leave the pot uncovered.)
When the timer goes off, drain the rice. Let it sit for 10 seconds or so in the colander and then…
Put it back in the pot and cover with a tight-fitting lid. (The steam is going to finish cooking the rice.) Set your timer for 10 minutes.
When the timer goes off, you’re done. Ta-da!

Quick Recap

Boil some water. Add some rice. Drain after 30 minutes. Return to pot for some additional steaming.

And that’s how you make brown rice without measuring!

â€¦soâ€¦

Think you’ll try it?

How to Cook Dried Beans (and Use Them Like Canned Ones)

September 14, 2012

Iâ€™m not sure how something as incredibly simple as cooking beans got the reputation of being nearly impossible, but I plan to do my part in remedying that. Cooking beans is a good skill for anyone’s cooking repertoire, and it’s super easy. Several steps, but super easy.

In this post I’m going to walk you through the steps to prepare dried beans that you can portion out, keep in the freezer, and then pull out and use like canned beans. But first…

Why Bother With Dried Beans?

Canned beans arenâ€™t particularly unhealthy and are cheap enough that it doesn’t always seem “worth it” to use dried. And honestly, I still use canned from time to time in a pinch. But here are the three reasons I’ve chosen to stick with dried beans most of the time:

It saves a little money
I can control the taste (yum)
It is substantially better for the environment

And really, it was the last consideration that did me in. I’m not the greenest person on the planet, but I do think that we should all make small steps toward being more environmentally friendly as we are able. So to do my part in that, as I discover earth-friendly choices that are within my grasp, I try to change.

In the case of beans, I looked at it like this:

It takes a factory to make cans
It takes a factory to recycle cans (or worse, a landfill to bury them)
Factories (see above) emit all kinds of waste
As do shipping vessels (note: cans are heavier and take up more room than bags)
Whether cans get thrown away or recycled, more resources are required to haul cans from my house than the alternative (and if I buy in bulk, the impact is reduced even further)

Iâ€™m sure there is much more to consider, and perhaps some of that is faulty reasoning, but Iâ€™d still be shocked if using canned beans was better for the environment.

And really, cooking with dried beans was well within my grasp. So between the environmental considerations, Â the cost savings, and the superior taste of making them myself, you can see how I was hooked.

How To Cook Dried Beans

Ingredients and Implements

The only things you MUST have are a large pot, water, beans, and a spoon. I also recommend salt. You can add additional things for flavor, and Iâ€™ll get to that, but the above is really all you need.

Oh, but you do need a little bit of time. The first couple of times you do this, I suggest two things: do it when you’ll be home for a long chunk of time, and don’t plan on using them for dinner that night. After you’ve done it a few times, you’ll be able to use the beans the same day as you cook them without stressing.Â (I’m a pretty big fan of gaining confidence with one thing before adding it to something else. I’m also not a big fan of stress.)

(I’ve included time estimations in the summary at the end.)

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Introducing: Foodist Friday

September 7, 2012

So… I’m a little excited about this. Okay, a lot excited.

See, I’ve had in mind to start a food blog for a long time now. I’ve had a vision, a name, an understanding of how it would be unique, and a huge belief that it could help a lot of people.

The blog would be about learning to work with food, and ingredients. Not about recipes so much, and not exotic, just practical knowledge that would help the most uninitiated home cook go from oh-my-gosh-I-could-never-do-that – to -Â holy-cow-I-just-made-that-deliciousness-without-a-recipe.

Learning to work with food has proven incredibly worthwhile for me. It has enabled me to save money, eat healthier, experience less stress with grocery shopping and meal planning, be less wasteful, and, best of all, to create tastier food.

The problem with the food blog idea is that I can’t possibly take on another project right now. I just can’t. Even though I am passionate about helping people overcome their home kitchen woes and even though the Dude is constantly encouraging me to share what I’ve learned over the years, I just don’t have the life-space to start a new, entirely different, project.

But the other day it finally clicked:Â exploring food this way is a perfect fit for Project Grownup. It is approaching something we never learned and trying to become more capable with it.

So for the benefit of Project Grownup (hopefully), and for the sake of my sanity (certainly), I have scrapped my previous food blog project and am grafting it into our little life here, in the form of a weekly column I’m calling Foodist Friday.

You interested?

Now, you might be wondering what a “foodist” is (hint: it’s not someone who spends their days on a beach wearing nothing but lettuce),Â so I’ve explained that and answered a few other Foodist Friday questions below.

Q: Uhhhh, what’s a foodist?

A:Â The meaning of the word “foodist” is still evolving. And since the word is still coming into its own, different people have different ideas of what it means. But from what I can see, it is most-often used to describe exactly the approach I’m aiming for: “over-interested in the essence of food.”

Q: How is a foodist different from a foodie?

You can look this up elsewhere on the web, but I might say it like this:

A foodie is a food hobbyist. They love to find recipes, buy cookbooks, watch food network, and read food blogs. They talk about their favorite restaurants andÂ menu items and what they’ve tried, in a comparing notes kind of a way. They have found a hobby and it happens to be food.

A foodist is a food enthusiast. They see food as an adventure and love to taste everything, learn about flavors and techniques, and are endlessly curious about real food. They read and talk about food in an exploratory or academic sort of way. They have found food and it happens to look like a hobby.

Q: Is this just going to turn into a food blog?

No. I couldn’t possibly keep up with a food blog. And my photography skills are wanting.

Q: You’re not a chef, how do I know you’re reliable?

Well, you don’t. That pretty much goes for anyone telling you anything on the interwebs. But I’ll be sharing things that I’ve been doing for a very long time. Plus, I’ll be using my food reference library and researching my little heart out to pass along the very best information I can.

Overall I hope Foodist Friday will help you feel more confident in the kitchen, and provide you with the encouragement to get started. And, as I’ll still be learning for a very long time, we’ll be growing together. Next week we’ll talk about using dried beans, and I’ll try to convince you to trade in your cans.Â Ready to get started?

But first, what would you like to see in Foodist Friday?Â