Whole grain goodness: Cornmeal lemon cookies

Oh, yes … these are the perfect companion for a late afternoon cuppa espresso. At least that’s how I did it this afternoon, after taking them out of the oven. I’m putting my stand mixer to the test lately, and cookies are a breeze in it. After the richness of the last batch of gingerbread cookies, I thought I’d try something lighter. These were the perfect choice.

Ingredients - Yield about 25 cookies  Time - about 45 minutes

1 cup of minced golden raisins, tossed with 2 tablespoons flour

6 ounces of softened, unsalted butter

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar ( I recommend fine Bakers Sugar)

zest of two large lemons

Juice of one half lemon

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups flour: *I divided it up thusly - 1/2 cup whole grain millet flour, 1/4 whole grain barley flour, 1/4 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup fine or regular whole grain corn meal/polenta ( I prefer finely milled)

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons finely minced fresh rosemary, plus some whole leaves for decoration

3 tablespoons coarse sugar for sprinkling on tops prior to baking

Much of the key to success in baking - or any cooking - is to have everything measured and prepped prior to mixing or cooking. Think it through. Double check. Have everything ready to go.

If you’ve only got frozen butter ( and I keep extra in the freezer), it’s not a good idea to soften it in the microwave. That just melts it. Take your sticks of butter, cut them into 1/2 inch slices with a sharp knife, and put those into a ziplok baggie. Immerse that in a pan of warm water for about 10 minutes, while you get everything else ready. You’ll have properly softened butter.

Technique

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and adjust your racks. Set up your baking zone. Prep your cookie sheets.

Mince the raisins, and toss them with the two tablespoons flour. Set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, or by hand, beat together the softened butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest. Beat until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, corn meal/polenta, minced rosemary, baking powder, salt.

Begin adding the dry ingredients to the stand mixer bowl, a quarter cup at a time. Then add in the raisins.

You can now bake the cookies right away, or wrap the dough in plastic wrap in a log shape, and chill for an hour to until tomorrow. You can even freeze this until a better time.

If you are going to bake them right away, portion them into balls, and set them on a sheet of baking parchment, on a cookie sheet.

You don’t have to space these cookies far apart, since they aren’t going to flatten out that much.

Lightly press a few leaves of fresh rosemary into the tops of the cookies, and then sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, rotate them halfway through if you are not using a convection oven. Remove them to a cooling rack.

Enjoy with espresso, or after dinner with some lemon sorbet.

*NOTE - Of course you can choose the whole grain combo to make your own cookies from. I would caution you to use some all-purpose flour, and mostly whole wheat, and then make up the rest from any combination that suits your fancy. Oat flour, Amaranth, Quinoa would all be excellent choices for this particular cookie. Use more or less of the Barley or whatever. I would even be tempted to try a sweet potato flour.

-maven

Whole grain goodness: Pizza dough

I’m going to tempt you with a photo.

Pizza dough - and pizza - that you can feel good about. And even better than that, it’s really, really tasty.

Simple ingredients. Straightforward. Rustic. Fairly easy. Incredibly healthy. What’s not to love here?

Regular readers will know that I love all things whole grain, and I’m on a mission of sorts to perfect the foods we know and love in the whole grain mode. To this end, I’ve begun a project to try and create a really tasty, good textured pizza dough that highlights the rich nuances of a variety of whole and heritage grains - something that can be stored in the refrigerator, and frozen. It irks me that I can’t go to the grocery store and buy a frozen or fresh container with multi whole grain pizza dough. That just seems so obvious to me.

Out came the many cannisters of whole grain flours, yeast, olive oil and the big, BIG Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

First I had to devise the recipe, then I decided to make three batches. Measure, measure, measure, and then make notes. I figured I’d drop some over at the neighbor’s house and ask them to give it a try. That’s called product testing. I mean, what are neighbors for?

Above in the photo, I’ve got three larger pans with the bulk of my flour mixture, then in the three glass bowls, I’ve got my percolating yeast ‘sponge’. The yeast - combined with water, olive oil and a half cup of the flour mixture - went into the kitchen aid mixer to be thoroughly combined. Then it sits for about 30 minutes to go poof. Bubble. Get happy.

This gives me a chance to put flours away and regroup.

When you look at the recipe, below, you’ll probably nag me about putting in the ultra fine, highly milled  ‘00’ Italian bread flour. “Whoa! That’s not whole grain!” Yup. I’m after the best balance of flavor, texture and healthy whole grain goodness. The whole grains comprise about 75% of the flours in this dough. I thinks that’s pretty damn good. I added vital wheat gluten, too. That’s to improve the elasticity and compensate for the lack of gluten in the whole grains.

When they’re ready, one at a time, each sponge will go into the mixer, with it’s accompanying flour added incrementally with the dough hook on the 2 setting. Stop and scrape occasionally. I found that - Nevada being dry - I had to add about two tablespoons of water, here and there, to get the dough to have that nice elastic shiny quality. You know the dough is ready when it pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl and starts to wrap tighter around the dough hook. The sides of the bowl should be quite clean looking.

As I finished each dough batch, it would go into another glass bowl that had been oiled. Cover each with a tea towel and set in a draft free place for about an hour.

Now, it’s time to gather, mince, slice and otherwise prepare the toppings. I wanted to keep it simple so that we could better evaluate the finished crust. So I opted for sliced grape tomatoes, halved balls of fresh mozzarella, sliced garlic and a melange of minced fresh basil, sage, thyme, oregano and rosemary. I had some sliced pancetta, so decided to use that for the meat.

Oh, time to preheat the oven - with a pizza stone if you have one. My oven will go 500 degrees. Just use the highest heat you have, which with many ovens is 450 or 475.

 

The first one cooked for about 12 minutes, and was perfectly great. The second cooked for about 14 minutes, since I was after a crisper crust. Yes. It worked very well indeed.

Well, here are the ingredients as I see them:

4 cups of flour, total. My combo came out like this - 1-1/2 cups of ‘OO’ Italian bread flour. 1 cup whole wheat bread flour. 1/2 cup each whole spelt and kamut flour. 1/4 cup each whole millet and barley flour.

2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1 (.25 ounce) packet of dry active yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

1/2 cup lukewarm water (about 105 to 115 degrees)

1/4 cup olive oil, plus a couple tablespoons more to grease the bowls for rising, and a similar amount to oil the rolled out pizzas prior to topping them.

3/4 cold water

Technique

In a large bowl, mix together your flours and  the salt, so they add up to 4 cups total.

In the big bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together 1/2 cup of the flour(s), the 1/2 cup lukewarm water, and the packet of yeast. Let it set for about 30 minutes, til it’s all bubbly and poofy.

When the yeast mixture is ready, add the rest of the water and olive oil. Turn your mixer on, using the dough hook, to the 2 setting. Start adding the rest of the flour(s) in quarter cup increments.

Mix/knead the dough for about 5 minutes or until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl, leaving ‘clean’ sides, and start to ball up around the dough hook. Remove the dough from the bowl, and set it in the greased bowl, and cover with a kitchen towel. Set it in a draft free place until it doubles in size - about 1-1/2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees or as close as you can get to that.

When the dough is doubled, punch it down. Give it a couple kneads and divide it into four disks … or two … or don’t. Make one big huge pizza pie if you want.

Working on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin and your hands. Stretch it out till it’s about 1/4 inch thick. It doesn’t have to be perfectly round or perfectly anything. I call this rustic. Rustic makes up for any number of sins of omission or lack of technique.

Repeat with remaining dough discs.

Wipe each rolled out dough disc with some good olive oil, put some tomato paste or pesto on - or don’t, hell it’s your pizza. Don’t look at me to hold your hand.

Here are some other things you can put on it, put please do it in the true Italian style - Less is More. Keep it to about 3 or 4 ingredients max. Use really good quality stuff.

Slices of fresh mozzarella, anchovies, kalamata olives, pine nuts, slices of artichoke hearts, minced herbs, julienned basil, dried tomatoes, thin slices of fresh tomato, goat cheese, pesto Genovese, simple goddamn tomato paste, parmesan cheese, salmon lox, tomato pesto, chunks of roasted chicken or turkey, spinach (blanched, drained and chopped), crumbled Italian sausage, fresh sage leaves, pancetta, paper thin slices of salami or prosciutto, caper berries, very thin slices of duck confit or smoked duck breast,  thin ribbons of zucchini … sliced apples, blue cheese, smoky bacon.

Knock yourself out.

I think this dough will freeze just fine. And it will keep fresh in the fridge, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, for a few days, too. In other words, there’s no reason not to have a bit of this dough around when you get the urge for a little slice of pizza pie.

Hey, if you try this, let me know how it works out for you. I’m really interested.

-maven

P.S. - A reader and neighbor keeps telling me that I should offer informal classes in some of this stuff … like the pizza making. What do you think? Would you be interested in spending a few hours on a Saturday, so that you have the confidence to do this on your own?

Chewy, crispy Ginger Snaps with healthy whole grain goodness

You might have noticed the other day, when I posted the recipe of the luscious applesauce/apple compote, that I made mention of how good it would be with some ginger cookies. That comment has stayed with me all week, so that by this afternoon, I couldn’t stand the strain.

Out came the big ol’ Kitchen Aid stand mixer and the various containers of whole grain flours from my dedicated ‘baking cabinet’. A place of many wonders.

This is so damn good. I was talking to my beautiful step-daughter ( she calls while on her commute homeward to Marin County from the South Bay - hands free, of course) on the speaker phone, as I whipped these up. Yes, our conversations can go on and on and on.

By the time I had them out of the oven and onto the cooling racks, she was starting to sound a little sad, hungry and whiney …. “You’ll probably need some cold milk to go with those…” Sniff. I was picking at the crispy parts that fell off of one and making ooh-y, goo-goo-y, lovey sounds.

“Oh, jeeze, Ronda! That’s right!”

Yup. Cold milk and warm ginger snaps. Chewy. Yet crispy. With just that sweet intersection between the perfect notes of coffee, chocolate and sweet ginger. These ‘snaps’ are almost on the savory side, not too sweet. They would make the perfect finish to a meal.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Now start your engines!

Makes about 30 cookies

You will need a total of 3 cups plus 2 tablespoons of *’flour’. In Maven’s World that meant:

1/4 cup each of spelt, kamut, barley and millet flour

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of finely ground cornmeal

1-1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder. Maven happened to have some Dominican Republic drinking chocolate in the cupboard, so guess what she used.

2-1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger. Make sure it isn’t ground ginger that’s been in the cupboard for the last year and is stale.

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of cloves

1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon of salt, preferably sea salt

1/3 cup of dark raisins - pulsed in a food processor to a paste

1 cup butter. I used one stick of regular butter (since that was handy in the fridge) plus 1/2 cup of Land O’Lakes spreadable butter with canola oil. Don’t use a butter spread with water in it.

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup blackstrap molasses

2 teaspoons of baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon of boiling water

1/3 cup granulated sugar (you’ll roll the balls of cookie dough in this before baking)

Sift the flour(s), cocoa powder, salt and spices together in the bowl of an electric mixer. A stand mixer is great for this, since you will have a stiff dough. Put the butter, brown sugar, and raisin paste in and mix using the whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in the molasses.

Add the baking soda mixture and beat thoroughly. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl, shape it into two rounds, which you’ll wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Prepare at least two baking sheets with parchment paper. I have a European convection oven which will take up to five cookie sheets. Shape the dough into 1/2 inch balls, roll them in the granulated sugar, and place them about two inches apart on the baking sheets. These cookies spread. I use a small ice cream scoop - the kind with the thumb lever to release the ball - to portion the dough.

Bake until the surfaces crack slightly, about 10 to 12 minutes. If you want a crisper cookie, bake a minute or so longer. When you remove them from the oven, they’ll be really soft so don’t try and put them directly onto the cooling racks. Let them sit for about five minutes, then take a spatula or fish turner to slip them onto the wire cooling racks. Let them really cool to firm up and become crispy.

Enjoy with cold milk.

They will keep, stored in an airtight container, up to 3 days.

You might think that you’d just gobble these things down, but because they are so packed with whole grains, I find that a couple ‘do it for me’. That’s the beauty of whole grains. They fill you up and keep you full (without the blood sugar spikes) - which is one reason they’re so great for controlling your weight. Plus, in using so many of these different grains, I think the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - so to speak. You’re getting the benefit of the micro-nutrients from all these different grains.

*Obviously, I hope, you realize that you can simply use all-purpose flour. You can also use just whole wheat flour, too. I keep canisters - large and small - of these flours in my baking cupboard. I love millet, corn meal and barley in things like these cookies - since they add a subtle savory sweetness. The barley flour adds a neat texture and loads of protein. You could also use oat flour, brown rice flour, sweet potato flour (hey, that might be really neat!) … experiment!

-maven

Healthy whole grains get better, faster in the Cuisinart pressure cooker!

Cooking and living the whole grain life - here at high altitude (4,412 ft) in Reno - can be something of a challenge. One option is to have one of the fuzzy logic rice cookers, which Maven has used for years. But, as good as it is, it’s damn slow. Brown rice takes freaking forever. It’s not something you want to do at the last minute for unexpected company.

Enter the Cuisinart CPC-600 6-quart electric pressure cooker. This is what lucky foodies and cooks will find under the Christmas tree this year!

I’m running this baby through it’s paces here at Kitchen Maven - what I do for you, my readers! And, today I did whole wheat berries and brown rice.

Oh, baby. Fast. Simple. And incredible.

I had to practically force myself to put the damn spoon down! Put the finished grains into the fridge for later use. Waaaaa. But they were so yummy! Just toothsome enough, not really al dente actually. Tender but whole. Not mush. They both could’ve got right into some outstanding soups with sauteed veggies and meat (unless you’re vegan, of course).

The wheat berries took the longest - 33 minutes ( I added 3 minutes for the altitude), with a 10 minute Natural Pressure Release. In other words, you don’t quickly release the pressure by turning the valve. Just let it cool down naturally. Since I was actually busy doing my exercise for the day, I let them simmer for probably 20 minutes until I could take them out and photograph them.

I used one cup of rinsed wheat berries to 3-1/2 cups of water, with 1-1/2 teapoons of the Herbamare seasoning salt, and 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Incredible. When done, I kept uh, tasting. Just a bit more.

The same results with brown rice. Only the brown rice took 13 minutes. The book said 10, but again, this is Reno. I used the same High Pressure and the slow Natural Pressure Release method.

Now, I realize they are more ‘soupy’ than a rice cooker would do them. But it’s a simple matter to drain off the excess liquid (shame, since it’s soooo flavorful) and use either grain in a pilaf side dish or such. But the sheer speed makes these grains so accessible for a weeknight supper that it’s well worth an extra step. With a bit of practice, I think I can pair down the amount of water.

On my next experiment, I think I’ll saute (on the saute setting of the wonderful Cuisinart) some onion in grapeseed oil, with some Juliet Mae Garam Masala Indian spice, then add the brown rice, with a chicken or vegetable broth.

Oh, gosh. That sounds great.

At any rate, this pressure cooker makes healthy, inexpensive whole grains completely accessible to the modern, time crunched home cook. I got this Cuisinart Pressure Cooker online at Amazon for well under $100, with no shipping charges. Now that’s real economy.

-maven

Angel Food with a heart healthy whole grain flair

Updated on Friday, March 26, 2010 at 12:32 by mavenandmeddler

I’ve been a big fan of angel food cake since my Swiss great grandmother used to make it. It was light, tender and meltingly wonderful. As I grew up, it was great to know that angel food cake was one of those seemingly sinful desserts that I could have instead of something truly calorie laden.

However, since my conversion to the whole grain model, I’ve had to leave out my angel food cake - until now.

Yes, it is possible to bake an angel food cake with the newer ‘white’ whole wheat flour that’s become available in recent years from places like King Arthur Flour in Vermont, or Hodgson Mill. The resulting cake will be a little bit more dense and not as high (the rise) than one made with refined white cake flour, but we all find the results perfectly acceptable. In fact, guests have said they wouldn’t have known the difference had I not made mention of the whole grain difference.

Here is the Hodgson Mill recipe:

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How healthy is your pasta? Depends on how much.

Way back in the day, when low-fat or no-fat was being touted as the cure-all and sure path to weight loss, I made a huge mistake. I listened to it and didn’t ask the right questions.

Oh, boy … did I ever pack on the pounds.

Now, 30 lbs or so lighter (and that’s been the case for about 10+ years ), I fully understand that staying a healthful weight isn’t that simple.

Portion control - aka calories - and becoming a food activist and deciding that you only eat whole grain pasta (and breads) is the only real way to keep the scale - and your waistline - in their places.

We only buy whole grain breads and pastas here. And I really do find that whole grain pastas are very filling, despite the much smaller portions in relation to the vegetables and marinara style sauces and toppings.

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Multi-grain porridge as comfort food

There are times when you just need some warm comfort food. We like ours to be of the whole grain variety … utilizing a lot of different grains in order to get as many of the micronutrients as possible ( the whole being greater than the sum of the parts - literally ), mostly choosing those that don’t enrich the Big Agribusiness/Wheat/Corn corporate pockets.

Choosing these other grains also puts less of a burden on the environment and are more sustainable. When your food comes from one hybrid strain of something, the chemicals come in - in an all too often failed attempt to replace all that nature originally gave it.

Tonight was one of those comfort food nights when we just wanted it keep it simple, but a bowl of cold cereal wasn’t quite right either.

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The folks at Kashi offer 5 ways to get more whole grains in your diet

Whole grains are not only delicious, but they also offer a multitude of nutritional benefits. They can make your everyday dishes more inspiring and can work their wholesome magic on your body. The great thing is that integrating them into your diet doesn’ have to be difficult. Here are a few easy ways to get more whole grains.

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Granola: the good and the bad

I could be a granola eater, but I can’t get my head wrapped around the calories and sugar that characterize the typical crunchy granola cluster. So, it was interesting yesterday while I was ‘binning’ at Whole Foods - a bag of toasted kasha buckwheat kernels, a bag of amaranth, a bit of kamut flakes, I got yakking with a fellow shopper about the granola choices.

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Seeds of Change: healthy meals in minutes

I just saw these in Whole Foods the other day, and although I normally would just make something similar myself in the good old rice cooker, Natacha is busy with a full time job ( and overtime - such is being a CNA ) and school - so, I have always have a few of these for her to take to work or as part of a quick meal component when she blows through the house.

According to their website:

Tigris A Mixture of Seven Whole Grains

Over 11,000 years ago, the earliest examples of wheat, barley and other grains were cultivated in the “fertile crescent” of Mesopotamia. Their seeds were irrigated by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. And as they grew and thrived, these grains spread throughout the globe. These days, we preserve the essential goodness of these ancient grains that took hours of loving preparation. We do all the work so you can have this dish on your table in just 90 seconds.

There are several varieties and they’re all a pretty tasty way to get your whole grains in a hurry.

Now you have no excuse.

maven

Update on Friday, April 10, 2009 at 17:43 by mavenandmeddler

I know these are fairly pricey but I also use them to put extra nutrition and fiber into soups when I’m in a hurry.

Best loaf for the price: Winco Foods

Here in Reno, I buy almost all of our daily bread at Winco Foods - also known as Cub Foods in other parts of the country. I’ve tried all the big commerical brands and found them to either be lacking - as in whole grains and flavor - or giving me what I didn’t want - higher costs, added artificial ingredients and such.

The bakery at my local Winco is a pretty big operation, and although it’s not putting out the fancy artisan stuff that I sometimes want, for every day bread it can’t be beat.

They offer a full line from Old Fashioned White to Whole Wheat, and the prices are about a buck a loaf less than the acceptable national brands - yes, you can buy cheaper but after a look at the ingredients list on those packages, why?

I get the Multigrain, Whole Wheat and occasionally, the Light Rye. We go through a lot of bread around this house in a weeks time, and each time I’ve tried to substitute another brand, I hear the howls of grief.

The Winco bread is consistently good. The texture is perfect, and it’s moist enough to eat untoasted, yet makes great toast. The flavor is mild enough for my husband, yet just gutsy enough in the true whole grain flavor to suit me - although that’s one reason I will occasionally pop for an expensive loaf of some artisan whole grain baguette.

They even will give you the nutrition facts on a hand out sheet if you ask, since their labeling is pretty bare bones. Last time I picked one up, the calories, fat, sodium and such were well within acceptable levels. There isn’t anything in the ingredients list that doesn’t absolutely need to be there to make a loaf of bread - in other words, nothing that my grandmother wouldn’t have recognized, which is my criterion.

Winco is located throughout the west in Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Grilled lamb chops Ras al Hanout, whole grain croquettes, sauteed spinach

I just had a craving for those tiny lamb chops that are cut from the rack of lamb, since I saw some the other day in the market and kinda choked on the price. We don’t much care for the larger, thicker lamb loin chops around here. These, which I got from Butcher Boy Prime in Reno were perfect. Succulent, juicy and mild - just like lamb should be, but so often isn’t.

The next question was - what to have with the chops?

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Peter Reinhart on bread

Batch to batch, crust to crust … In tribute to the beloved staple food, baking master Peter Reinhart reflects on the cordial couplings (wheat and yeast, starch and heat) that give us our daily bread. Try not to eat a slice.

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Barley Butterscotch Cookie recipe

I don’t like butterscotch much. Yes, that’s totally from the fringes of the known universe - being almost as nuts as not liking chocolate. Butterscotch is one of those too sweet things that just don’t make it for me, though. That aside, I’ve got to try this recipe as soon as things settle down around here.

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Deliciously easy whole grain stuffing: thrifty and healthy

I really like whole grains for their richer flavor profiles, not to mention the health benefits. Yet, I have not found a satisfactory store-bought, packaged stuffing geared to people like me. That’s why I make my own, and believe me, it’s so darn simple that you’ll wonder why you ever did it differently. All for the price of a batard or baquette of Truckee Sourdough Company - or similar - artisan bread from your supermarket

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Did you know? Little known food facts.

Did you know:

Dom Perignon ( ca. 1638-1715), erroneously credited with inventing champagne, is said to have exclaimed, “I am drinking stars!” on his first bubbly sip.

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Top Tip for Getting Delicious and Healthy Whole Grains: Easier Than You Think

I have a ‘fuzzy logic’ rice cooker that a bought on ebay. I’ve always had some sort of rice cooker since they are so idiot proof … set it, and walk away. wait for the ‘ding’. It wasn’t until recently though that I started playing around with other whole grains in the machine.

I’ve believed for some time that, as Americans, we are too dependent on wheat and corn …and to a lesser extent white rice.

It’s just a guess, but I think that giving our bodies a wide variety of grains ( among other foods) helps add essential nutrients and gives us a necessary diversity that our highly processed food culture has taken away.

So I’ve started buying grains such as kamut, spelt, kasha, wild rice,  buckwheat, barley and quinoa, then combining them with brown or wild rice, tossing them into the rice cooker using the brown rice setting. The results have been very satisfying and popular with the family.

Essentially, it’s become a breeze to create nice nutty whole grain side dishes and salads. You can add fresh or cooked vegetables to the cooked grains … even things like nuts, cooked lentils and dried cranberries. It’s an easy way to add an important mix of fiber and proteins to your diet, plus when you portion it out to freezer bags and toss into the freezer (sans the additions ) it’s really convenient.

I cook the grains, in any combination, as I said on the ‘brown rice’ setting and usually using low sodium, organic chicken broth instead of water. I might add some parsley at this point but prefer to season after it’s done and when I’ve decided whether or not to freeze part of it, use some as tonights’ side dish or whatever. It even makes a hearty cold weather morning alternative to oatmeal… you could even top the warmed grains with a lucious poached egg and serve with some fresh fruit.

To further simplify, I like to use the pre-cooked and packaged Trader Joe’s black lentils. I just toss those in when the grains are done then work from there with onion, chopped celery, roasted red or yellow bell peppers, olive oil and whatever the creative muse suggests.

The big fat Israeli couscous is a nice addition to, creating a textural difference.

One of the nice parts of all this is that most of these grains are available in the bins at your local market and a really inexpensive way to up the nutrition factor for your family. Take a look at this link from Whole Foods about the nutritional value of quinoa: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=142

The other place to discover the benefits of whole grains is at: http://www.wholegrainscouncil.org/  The Whole Grains Council helps consumers find whole grain foods and understand their health benefits; helps manufacturers create delicious whole grain products; and helps the media write accurate, compelling stories about whole grains.

You can also cook whole grains like these in those convenient, and inexpensive, Black & Decker steamers. But I live at a higher altitude here in Reno, and whole grains will take longer to cook (even in a rice cooker). You have to allow extra time for altitude … unless you decide to use a pressure cooker (another fave of mine) and that’s another post.