More Key Hints on Cooking Rice

Just because a rice cooker automatically steams off the water and then shuts off, does not mean you can put in any old amount of water. Too much, it will be soggy and grotesque, losing all its flavor. Too little, it will be much too hard. You get a feel for how much, which depends on your altitude and how long you soak your grain. But Please, please try to get it al dente so that your health efforts can be richly rewarded with awesome flavor and texture. It should be downright dry and tacky through and through, and chewy, yet plenty soft or tender. This goes for rice or ryse or anything like that.

My brother Russ fed me lunch once when I went into the woods to visit. Browned onions and garlic then red-stemmed chard into the fry pan with just enough water to make it sloshy and cook them down. It continues as one of my favorites years later. But I also throw in ginger root, which is optional. Today I had it with fresh-steamed ryse. It was so good, so perfect, I couldn't taste any of the other things I had along because I couldn't spoil it. Here's a refresher for what ryse is and how to make it: hand-full each of whole spelt and barley, 2-4 handfulls each of amaranth and millet, some sesame seeds or a sprinkling of flax seed are optional. Throw into rice cooker. Soak overnight. Steam. Do not uncover till cool. It is key to eat it while fresh, and to a lesser degree, not to cook more than about an inch high in the pan.

I have not time yet to check whether it's optional through the settings, but the way blogger doesn't let me do spaces or paragraphs really cramps my writing style.

Observation for the Day

The nutrients in your corn flakes and the nutrients in real food are as similar as vanilla ice cream and mud. Hot, rough, dark mud.

No Wonder - Collards Do Got 'Sugar'

Generally thinking that green vegetables were all 'free' diabetic exchanges, from back in my diabetes education days of 1996, that is, I thought broccoli and collards had about the same carb content as lettuce, I was surprised to sense my raw collards were raising my sugar. Finally upon looking it up, sure enough, collards have 12 g per cup compared to 4 g/C for broccoli and 1 or 2 g/C for lettuces. Awesome Collards! Just proves it's real food, not just lettucey stuff.

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Ever hear of or do you remember the little boys who became famous rappers who wore oversized trousers on backward? I heard one say on a talk show that this way of wearing pants was fundamentally cool, not a fad, and he would be wearing them this way the rest of his life. As my life gets hectic and I cycle in and out of living the way this blog idealizes, I sometimes (when I am on the out part of the cycle) feel like I should quit the blog. But it doesn't take long at all before my body goes on strike, demanding I get right back into it, and I rediscover true relishment. Thus we see that the content here is not any kind of fad but truly fundamental; it's always here and never gets old not because of my resolve, discipline or staying power but because of its own absolute truth.

Wow Lunch

I seldom have this much available at once but today I sure did (raw unless otherwise noted): Fresh picked collards from the back lawn; Soaked organic almonds; Bustin' radish; Ginger root; Semi-sprouted and steamed spelt, barley, amaranth and millet; Sharon's carrot juice, which probably contained organic apple, kale, and who knows what else; A palm full of dry roasted peanuts for dessert (ingredients: peanuts. Well after lunch, not having overeaten, but stopped at the ideal time (at the signal), without further adjustment, sugar = 107. Sometimes I ruin an ideal lunch by having dessert or overeating and put my sugar above the range in which I can absorb any of the great nutrients I just took in. Not the case today.