What's in your rice cooker? (and other miscellaneous thoughts)

This weekend I was in Guelph with Khalid, where his parents made me the best cabbage ever and my favourite rice dish, brown rice with mung beans. That got me thinking about rice cookers. I have had lots of friends and family tell me that they would never buy a rice cooker... but why?! Unless you are a raw foodist, a rice cooker is such a great addition to your kitchen! (and a slow cooker too, but that's probably another blog post). You can make just about any grain in a rice cooker, including legumes like red/green lentils and split peas. If you are trying to go gluten-free, get yourself some grains and embrace your rice cooker.

Here's what's in my rice cooker tonight!

 Ingredients:
-1 cup washed red lentils
-2 cups washed green lentils
-Handful of fresh spinach (not washed, because I never wash my produce... worst microbiologist ever)
-Handful of frozen rapini (I made a trip to MacMillan farms today and went crazy in the frozen veg aisle)
-*Fresh ground black pepper, coriander seed, cumin seed and sea salt
-**1 tsp olive oil

...just add water! (6 1/2 cups for me)

 *If you are corn-free, like myself, do yourself a favour and invest in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Most packaged (ground) spices contain cornstarch to prevent clumping, or even dextrose in the case of iodized salt (dextrose... read corn!). I just bought a mortar and pestle from Winners today for $10 and ground my spices fresh (there's nothing compared to the fragrance of freshly ground spice).

**Khalid used to tell me when my rice cooker bubbled over it was because I didn't wash my rice well enough (how insulting, I wash EVERYTHING so well...), but actually the secret is to add a little oil. Who knew? Now you do, and you too can make froth-free rice.

 

Last week I bought some split peas from bulk barn and got totally gluten-ed. Unfortunately, bulk barn is not a gluten-friendly place, and the wheat flours have a way of floating into bins where they are not welcome. I usually don't have a problem, but maybe I've just been lucky so far! So, I took my upset psoriasis to the Superstore in search of some packaged beans/lentils. I found this brand, Bella Tavola, which looks safe (avoid NuPak, they process their beans/lentils on the same equipment as wheat).


I have some other leafy greens to make smoothies and salads out of for Monday and Tuesday lunches. I picked up some sesame seeds, raw olive oil and apple cider vinegar that I'm hoping to make some salad dressing with tomorrow (I'll let you know how it goes!). Did you know that in 2006 the makers of Mastro EVOO were convicted of false advertising because they were mixing in 50% sunflower oil? What a scandal. What was I talking about?

Here's a salad I ate last week (in the spirit of trying to share my eating adventures with you). It had romaine lettuce, carrots, almonds, green peppers, cucumber, avocado and hemp seeds. I rarely use dressing on my salads anymore, and it's definitely not necessary when you have creamy avocado mixed in there. Note that if you are going to make yourself a salad, do away with the dinky "soup" bowls and get yourself a behemoth popcorn bowl, or even a mixing bowl. I can't even fit half my lettuce in those puney side bowls... clearly they were designed by carnivores.

In closing, I wanted to send a big shout out to my Australian friend Nicole who just went back to Nepal and did a great job of raising money for HCCH! Naturally this has made me super nostalgic for my past travels with such wonderful Aussies. In the spirit of our beloved snacks, I've been eating carrots and peanut butter for the past few days. Don't knock it till you've tried it, mate! Make sure to buy the natural peanut butter, otherwise you're just eating glorified icing sugar.





How are your New Year's Resolutions going? It's been a week since I've been to the gym, but at least I had a salad. Right? Right?!

I'd better go do some push-ups...