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Rice is one of our preferred side dishes. One reason is that rice goes well with beans and we sure do eat alot of beans! đ
We usually have soaked brown rice but sometimes we have regular old white rice. I know that brown rice is a better choice nutritionally but Kiki and Lulu love white rice so we do have it once in a while. Also, from a food storage stand point, white rice does have a longer shelf life than brown rice. If we were ever in a situation of needing to rely on our food storage, we would eat the brown rice first and then move on to the white rice.
When we are having rice we always make a double batch. We use a rice cooker to make the rice and it takes only a few minutes longer for a double batch to cook compared to a single batch. I love having rice available for quick and easy use in the fridge or freezer. The girls often make themselves a quick snack of fried rice, rice cereal or garlic rice. It is nice to have something quick and easy available for them. While rice itself isn’t very nutrient dense that additions really up the nutritional value. Fried rice with eggs (from our free range chickens) and coconut oil is a ‘snack’ I feel good about the kids eating.
Sometimes the extra rice will be part of the dinner the next night or in a couple of days. If you look at my menu plans you will see examples of this ‘leftover’ rice. Such as this week we had rice on Sunday night (creamed tuna over rice) and again on Tuesday night (Sloppy Joe’s in a Bowl). Tuesday nights rice was reheated on the stove top with a little bit of water added in. It only takes a couple of minutes and once again we have nice fluffy rice. A few other rice ideas;
Breakfast
- Hot Rice with Milk and Honey (heat the rice up in a little milk or water then top like oats)
- Rice Pancakes (mix rice, buttermilk and flour- let set overnight adding remaining ingredients in the morning)
Lunches/Dinners or Snack
- Fried Rice
- Add to meat loaf, salmon loaf or meat loaf burgers to stretch the meat
- Add to burritos, taco’s or taco salad to stretch the meat and/or beans
- Part of a Skillet Dinner, Soup/Stew or Casserole
- Garlic Rice (recipe below)
- Your ideas listed in the comments…
Garlic Rice
This is a super quick lunch or snack that we enjoy.
Leftover rice (about 1 cup per person)
Butter (about 1 teaspoon per person)
garlic powder (scant 1/4 teaspoon or more if you really like garlic)
salt and pepper to taste
Nutritional Yeast (about 1 Tablespoon per person)
Milk (1 tablespoon per person)
Heat the rice with a little bit of water on the stove top. Add the butter, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Stir well. Top with the Nutritional Yeast and milk then stir again. Yum!
Do you have favorite uses for rice? Be sure to add them to the comments
>We eat our fair share of rice, both brown and white! I don't feel nearly as guilty about the white anymore, after reading something from Sarah, over at The healthy Home Economist blog. She wrote something about how much easier white rice is to digest than brown rice (especially important for children) and she goes on to explain why she sometimes uses white rice. At least that's how I remember it!!!
>Cyn,
I've heard that about white rice too. It's funny, when I make white rice the girls love it. When I make brown rice Joe loves it đ I like both. I don't think that we have noticed any digestion differences between the two rather ours is actual taste differences.
>Sometimes, I useleftover rice as a crust for meat pies, or add to soups. I recently made a sprout "muffins" with leftover rice. In a muffin tin, I layered leftover rice, homemade cream cheese, sprouts and poured an egg/milk mixture over the top and baked it until the eggs were set.
>Tiff,
Your sprout muffin sounds very interesting. What kind of sprouts were they?
I'd forgot about using rice as a crust. Many years ago, I used rice as a quiche crust from a suggestion in the Tightwad Gazette. I'll have to do that again, thanks for the reminder!
>I used broccoli sprouts that were on the verge of going bad. By the way, I've been looking around your blog more and it is so full of great info! Thanks for taking the time to pos it all. I have so much to learn!
>Thanks Tiff!
>We just found your blog and are so thrilled to see your project (eating real food on a budget) in action! Keep up the posts. You've got some really good ideas here!
>Devouring,
Thank you and Welcome!
>From what I've read, your family is pretty open to the way you eat but was it always that way? It's just me an my husband but I have such a hard time getting him to eat this way…I am making seperate meals and he's complaining that we don't eat the same things, yet won't try my foods. Do you have any advice for getting him to make the switch? He's very picky and stubborn.
>Tiff,
I don't really know if I have any good suggestions for you. But I'll do a post on this subject with my thoughts and see if anyone else can offer ideas.