you might remember back from our 2013 resolutions video that one of our goals this year was to do more cooking from scratch. since then, i’ve made fresh pasta by hand, fallen in love with whole wheat cinnamon rolls and make them every chance i get, and have experimented with several different pizza crusts. but even though i’ve enjoyed all of this and do genuinely like to make things like this when there’s extra time on the weekends, what i really mean when i talk about ‘from scratch’ are the basics: rice & other grains, beans, etc. – things that for us, make up a large part of our normal diet.
i realize that cooking dry rice isn’t all that difficult, and i certainly don’t claim to be offering an earth-shattering idea or even recipe here. but, because of how often we eat things like rice and beans in our house, we’re guilty lots of times of taking the easy way out by buying canned beans or rice-a-roni-type boxed mixes, and i’m willing to bet that many of you out there are the same way. and although preparing rice or beans from scratch will save you a little bit of money (especially if you buy in bulk from somewhere like whole foods), the real winning factor here is that it’s so much more nutritious and you don’t have to worry about all the extra additives and junk (and SODIUM, namely) in those canned and boxed situations.
preparing a big batch of your favorite grains and/or beans at the beginning of the week can be a huge time saver, especially on those nights where nobody feels like cooking at you end up eating out, and then feeling guilty that you didn’t eat the food in your cabinets. i do this with rice almost every week, and we use it throughout the week on corn tortillas or just warmed up with a vegetable on the side. you could easily find many more delicious recipes for brown rice with a quick search, but i thought i’d share my go-to “recipe” here. it’s inspired by chipotle’s rice, and i love it because it’s really flexible and can easily adapt to whatever else you plan to serve with it…it can be made spicy in tacos, used for fried rice or other asian-themed dishes, the list goes on.
ingredients: (makes about 3 cups cooked rice)
-1 cup dry brown basmati rice (i like the trader joe’s brand, or buy bulk if you can)
-1 tbsp butter or vegan margarine
-large handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
-juice of 1/2 lime
-salt to taste
to prepare:
cook brown rice according to the method of your choosing (personally, i never really mastered rice on the stovetop, so we use a cheapy rice cooker from target that is much more hands-off; whatever method you choose, plan on using more water and it taking longer than white rices)
while rice is cooking, add the chopped cilantro and butter or margarine to the container that you’ll be storing the rice in when it’s done (like a big tupperware). once the rice is finished cooking, add the rice to the container and mix in the cilantro and butter. after mixing, squeeze in the juice from 1/2 of a lime, and add salt to taste. i like to add quite a bit of salt, but don’t over-salt in case you want to add more to an overall dish later in the week.
and that’s it! if you aren’t using the rice right away, make sure to let it cool completely before storing in the refrigerator. enjoy the rice however you like, but our favorite way lately is on corn tortillas along with black beans, fresh tomatoes and of course, extra cilantro + lime.
next up: our other favorite taco ingredient, black beans!
