Cheap Eats- Budget Breakfasts III

I am often appalled at the price of hot cereals, especially gluten-free hot cereals.  If you have a blender or a grain mill, you can make them for a fraction of the cost of the commercially produced products and they will be fresher.  Rice farina is the perfect example of this.  Bob’s Red Mill sells it for $17.72 for 7 pounds, which comes out to $2.53 a pound.  You can get whole rice for the normal price of 40 cents a pound around here, probably less if you go to an ethnic market, and then do about 3 minute’s worth of work yourself to save the $2.13 difference.  I have also done this with sorghum and had excellent results.

Take your rice and if you are using a grain mill, set it for a coarse grind.  You want it to look like grits.  If you are using a blender, pulse until you get a grind with a mix of medium and smaller pieces.  If you are using a grain that needs to be soaked, you can now soak it with lemon juice, vinegar, whey or the like.  Once you are ready to cook it, place it into a fine mesh colander and rinse it thoroughly.

Place your grain in a saucepan and add 3 parts water for every 1 part grain.  Use more water if you like it to be thinner, you can cook it a little longer if needed to get the consistency right.  I normally use a scant 1/3 cup rice and 1 cup water, add 2 Tbs coconut oil or butter and a generous dash of salt.  Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8-10 minutes, depending on the consistency you like. Once it is cooked, you can add any additions such as rapadura, maple syrup, dried fruit, cream, nut butter, coconut milk and the like.  I often use this as a way to use up the little bits of coconut milk left when a recipe calls for less than a full can and the little bits of nut butter left in the bottom of the jar, using a spatula to scrape the last little bits out.

This entry was posted on March 11, 2010 at 10:35 and is filed under Egg-Free, Nut-free, Soy-Free, breakfast, recipe, Casein-Free, Cheap Eats, frugality, Gluten-Free. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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