Grains You Like When Not Eating Rice

[weinoo]

Let's not say "pasta."  But wheat in all its infinite varieties (emmer?)...sure.

 

I don't cook many other grains as plain side dishes. Buckwheat groats - fuggetaboutit.  Farro - fascinating. Quinoa -  quit kidding me.

 

So let's hear all about your favorites. But if it's rice...go here.

Edited December 1, 2020 by weinoo (log)

[Katie Meadow]

Wheat. Hard to live without it, and I tried for a year. Most kinds of wheat noodles, yes. Farro and bulgur are regular residents. Farro for soups and salads. Bulgur=tabouli (essential for summer!) Couscous, good every once in a while for a change. Never had it made in the traditional slow cooked way, only the instant 5 minute thing, but I bet the real deal is great. Freekeh: jury is out, tried it only once.

 

Rye. Technically a grass related to wheat. If you need to be gluten free don't eat it. Love it love it love it. Takes talent to use it in bread; the higher the percentage they harder it is to work with. My husband can attest to that. I miss New York. Rye is versatile and good for drinking.

 

Barley. Mushroom and barley is a nostalgia casserole. If barley isn't a main ingredient in Scotch Broth it isn't Scotch Broth. Love it. Barley tea: weird.

 

Buckwheat. Not a grain, technically a grass. Groats are horrid. Some buckwheat added to wheat products is really nice. Pancakes, Soba. In cookies and cakes.

 

Quinoa. Also technically not a grain, it's a seed. BORRRING. Expensive, too. I lump it in with kale and I say the hell with it. Both are marketed as super healthy, but neither is really more healthy than the other pseudo grains or greens.

 

Is corn a grain? Originally it was a grass. Often considered a grain. I like it in all its iterations except bourbon.

 

Going to get out of bed now. Can't wait to have some  toast. 

 

 

[kayb]

I actually kinda like buckwheat groats. And I've become a fan of sorghum, which works well cooked, spread out to dry and cool, then used in a salad or grain bowl. Sadly, all the wheats are off limits to me, as is, I believe, barley. Corn is my friend, though, anyway from hominy to cornbread. I use grits a lot as a starch instead of noodles or pasta. Oats, steel-cut or rolled either one, are hard to beat as a breakfast grain.

 

[chromedome]

My cupboard currently contains most of the above, though I don't remember when I last cooked any buckwheat groats (thanks for the reminder!) so I'll probably toss those and buy new. Quinoa's in the regular rotation because it cooks more quickly than whole "real" grains, and I like its delicately herbacious note (though having said that, I'll also often cook it as a pilaf with lots of other flavors). No farro or rye at the moment, but I do have some whole kamut berries. Also millet, two sizes of bulgur wheat, stone-ground and regular cornmeal, wild rice, and the steel-cut oats I eat most mornings for breakfast.

Oh, and a really ridiculous quantity of barley...maybe 6 or 8 pounds...because one of my cousins is occasionally gifted with foodservice-sized quantities of random things by a friend who works at a food wholesaler, and she had no idea what she'd do with that much. So it came to me, because I like barley in soups, pilafs and barley risotto (I also buzz a bit occasionally in my spice grinder and add the resulting barley flour to baked goods.

[KennethT]

We don't really eat anything, grain-wise, other than rice based or wheat based.  I have a ridiculously strong buckwheat allergy - remind me one day to tell the hilarious story of me at Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy... anyway, because of it, I tend to avoid anything that is not white - including whole wheat... with the exception of rye - I know that's not a problem.  Many years ago, my wife was on a quinoa kick, but after a while I had to put an end to it because I just couldn't take it anymore... haha...  One of these days, I have to get back to making stuff with couscous - we ordered in recently from Cafe Mogador because I was jonesing for their lamb tagine and their couscous.  It's hard to make couscous at home after I have theirs just because anything I can make relatively quickly is gross by comparison and is completely offputting.

[TdeV]

We've been eating a lot of Rancho Gordo beans and I'd forgotten how much I like split peas. Recently made a split pea and carrot soup to which I added 1/2 cup of barley flakes. On the top was added chopped pork belly. It tasted great at the time. A day or two later, the soup is like concrete! And produces such flatulence!

[BeeZee]

Currently in the pantry I have some wild rice (not rice), farro (nice chew), quinoa (good vegetarian protein source), kasha/buckwheat groats (not in love with them, likely to give up and toss), barley (love the texture).

Couscous I have in both traditional small grain (white and whole wheat) and large "Israeli" style. The larger grain is good for salads.

I tend to use grains more than rice because with a husband who is diabetic, having white rice, for him, is like eating straight sugar.

[Katie Meadow]

17 minutes ago, TdeV said:

We've been eating a lot of Rancho Gordo beans and I'd forgotten how much I like split peas. Recently made a split pea and carrot soup to which I added 1/2 cup of barley flakes. On the top was added chopped pork belly. It tasted great at the time. A day or two later, the soup is like concrete! And produces such flatulence!

Beans are not a grain!

[TdeV]

2 minutes ago, Katie Meadow said:

Beans are not a grain!

 

No but barley flakes are.

And probably the cause of the stomach distress.

Edited December 1, 2020 by TdeV
Clarity (log)

[Jacksoup]

I love barley, farro, and freekah.  Usually use the barley in soup, farro and freekah as a salad base.  I am so done with quinoa.  A friend owned a company that did agricultural packing.  When quinoa became popular, that’s all they packed for a while.  I still have bags of regular, red and tri-color quinoa in my pantry.  Bob Dylan’s son was the quinoa supplier.  He imported it from Peru, IIRC.

[Nyleve Baar]

Ok this has been bothering me. So I’m going to ask. What’s the difference between a grain and a seed?i know that all grains are seeds. Wheat, oats, barley...all of them are seeds. Why are some seeds not considered to be grains? Someone (see above) said that technically quinoa and buckwheat are not grains but they’re seeds. But WHY are they not grains just because they’re seeds?!? Sorry for yelling. I don’t understand.

[chromedome]

36 minutes ago, Nyleve Baar said:

Ok this has been bothering me. So I’m going to ask. What’s the difference between a grain and a seed?i know that all grains are seeds. Wheat, oats, barley...all of them are seeds. Why are some seeds not considered to be grains? Someone (see above) said that technically quinoa and buckwheat are not grains but they’re seeds. But WHY are they not grains just because they’re seeds?!? Sorry for yelling. I don’t understand.

The "true" grains are all seeds of various grasses, while the "pseudo-grains" are grain-like seeds of non-grasses. Buckwheat, for example, is close kin to rhubarb (let your rhubarb run to seed, and you'll see the likeness). Quinoa and Amaranth are related to beets and chard.

 

(ETA: This is the TL;DR version, but that's the gist of it.)

Edited December 2, 2020 by chromedome (log)

[gfweb]

Barley and wild rice.

 

Barley makes a nice creamy risotto-ish dish.

 

Wild rice + sauteed red onion + rehydrated cranzins is nice too

[weinoo]

10 hours ago, chromedome said:

The "true" grains are all seeds of various grasses, while the "pseudo-grains" are grain-like seeds of non-grasses. Buckwheat, for example, is close kin to rhubarb (let your rhubarb run to seed, and you'll see the likeness). Quinoa and Amaranth are related to beets and chard.

 

(ETA: This is the TL;DR version, but that's the gist of it.)

This really is the TL;DR version - as I started doing a little research it can get overwhelming!

Spices & herbs - so much easier!

[dtremit]

Late to this, but we have recently discovered purple barley, which is lovely. To my palate, it has a nuttier flavor than the regular stuff.

[Elkyfr]

Rice is not in my habitual diet... Sometimes in rice pudding, delicious. 

 

My diet normally is greens and proteins... Ans one day a week everything I want to eat.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Elkyfr (log)

[SLB]

 

On 12/1/2020 at 11:12 AM, Katie Meadow said:

Quinoa. Also technically not a grain, it's a seed. BORRRING. Expensive, too. I lump it in with kale and I say the hell with it. Both are marketed as super healthy, but neither is really more healthy than the other pseudo grains or greens.

 

I think the health claim of quinoa is that it's that unicorn known as the grain which supplies an actually complete protein.  Making it fairly essentially to the people who ate it as a component of their native normal diet.  I believe the only other grain with this unicorn status is amaranth.  

 

I don't understand the health claim of kale at all -- in fact, more than one horticulturist-type has told me that kale will remove industrial pollutants in soil, which would seem to mean you would NOT want to eat a whole lot of it, at least not any that was foraged.   I fully agree that is is not any more healthy than other leafy green vegetables.

 

Anyway.  Although I typically eat very few grains, right this moment I am availing myself of tasty grain salads.  And happily stumbled upon this old thread.

 

[As an aside, this cookbook on the subject looks stunning:  https://www.kitchenartsandletters.com/products/grist-a-practical-guide-to-cooking-grains-beans-seeds-and-legumes.  This moment of mine is going to pass in a few weeks, so I'm not buying it, but I sure do want to go look at it.]  

 

I'm eating farro (probably my VeryVeryFavorite, the texture is just perfect); hominy (I guess not a grain, but satisfies in the same way); freekeh (unsure if I'll be buying any more of this, ever); and quinoa (which I don't like, but it was in the house and like I said, I on this high-grain junket right now).  

 

What I realized I want next is -- well, what I want next is grits.  Cornmeal is my favorite grain-like substance in the whole world, and I will often use soft polenta in place of rice -- but other than that, I kind of want a bulgur salad.  My understanding is that, like corn, bulgur is milled in a fashion to where it retains a bit of incomplete protein.  Which helps avoid the blood sugar spike. Along with whatever fiber is left.

 

Aside from size, is all bulgur the same?  Or is there some brand of bulgur that is more delicious than others?  

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by SLB (log)

[kayb]

Try sorghum. Nice in a grain salad. Good in soups. High protein. Interesting, and I think good, flavor.

 

[Annie_H]

I have most posted above and then some. I pick up a new one as i see it to go into the pantry mix/choices. Quart ball jars on a pantry shelf and bags in a sealed roll out crate. 

White, basmati, brown rice has its place on its own but I make a mixed grain every 7-10 days. Pick a few---3-5 choices. I like the nuttiness of a mixed grain. The whole wheats used for flours are very different than rice 'as we know it'. Nice chewy texture. 

Beyond the varieties of all the whites and browns, so good as is, ---a mixed grain has a variety of textures we really like. Quinoa I agree is odd on its own. Split peas have never been on my table as soup. 🤢. A mixed grain, I pick 4-6 varieties and make a small batch in my grain pot----makes about 5 cups. Never the same in rotation. I like a bit for breakfast. (no slimy breakfast 'choak-down' oats in my diet.

Wheat berries and wild rice gets a 20 minute head start....then add as the grain time is needed. Lentils, split peas, Israeli couscous at the end of cooking. 

 

[Duvel]

Does drinking the grains also count ..?’

 

[gfweb]

Barley (which risottos well), wild "rice", bulgur wheat, polenta/grits.

 

Israeli cous cous, but that's not a grain

Edited October 30, 2021 by gfweb (log)

[Annie_H]

1 hour ago, gfweb said:

Israeli cous cous, but that's not a grain

I realize that. It is like orzo. A type of pasta. I should have 'pre-viewed' before 'reply' but got busy in the kitchen with alarms going off....why two pics of the same grain is posted by mistake. I was meaning to post the link to the wheat supplier I use where the pic came from to give proper credit. 

The wheat grains are like farro. Chewy. 

Link to Palouse, HERE

Nice company. I've been getting my grains, lentils, and garbanzos from them for 6+ years. Early 2020 a box of five 5pound bags went missing. They sent a new box asap even with all the horrid delivery and employee mess. I promised to take the first purchase to the firehouse if it ever showed up. Never did. 

I did mention I pick from a pantry of varieties. Quinoa I don't care for on its own. But use it often in a mixed grain bowl. (a seed but often used as a grain)

[Annie_H]

I should add that Palouse has a few times a year---buy two get one free. And free shipping. They always seem to have one deal around the BlackFriday scenario. I like RanchoGordo. I like Palouse for bulk beans and grain.  And MountainRoseHerb for my spices. 

[liuzhou]

15 hours ago, Annie_H said:

I realize that. It is like orzo. A type of pasta.

 

Unless you are Italian. Orzo is Italian for "barley". The pasta is so named because of the resemblance.