You Should Be Cooking Rice

Why should you start cooking rice more often? Of all the foods in the world rice is one of the most useful to gluten free healthy woman. Why? Because it's ubiquitous. You can find it almost any where and you can do most anything with it. You can order rice based dishes in ethnic food restaurants and fast food restaurants. You can easily prepare it at home for every meal AND if you take a dish of it to a potluck no one will look askew at your gluten free offering.

Rice is perfect. Here's a short video lesson on cooking rice. Rice is naturally gluten free but beware of "enriched" rice. The coating that gives it its name might not be safe.

What If You're Bored By The Thought Of Cooking Rice?

Experiment. You don't have to confine your taste buds to white rice. Buy small bags of basmati, jasmine, brown, arborio, and other rice varieties. Make your old recipes but use the new-to-you rice varieties.

You might even try using rice instead of pasta in some of the dishes you use to eat but can't now that you're gluten free. Eventually, you'll find gluten free pastas that are worth cooking but until then try rice as a substitute. Sometimes the sauce was the real draw anyway.

How To Spice It Up

In addition to cooking different varieties of rice you might be interested in testing different spice combinations. Your taste buds can travel the world. Here's a tip for creating your own mixes.

Here are three simple mixes:Start with equal amounts, 2 teaspoons each, keep notes in your notebook, and adjust until you get it the way you like it.

Indian = cumin, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, & bay leaves
Thai = cilantro, garlic, sesame, ginger, and lemon grass
Italian = sage, oregano, marjoram, basil

As always, carefully read the labels of commercial mixes. Some of the spice mixes have fillers and/or thickeners which are usually gluten filled. You can also use their ingredient lists as inspiration for creating your own blends.

Learning about rice also makes it more interesting. Did you know there's a 50-year old institute working to reduce poverty around the world using rice.

When Is A Good Time For Rice?

You can eat rice all day long. Rice is even good for breakfast. However you usually eat your oatmeal or other hot cereal will work for rice. It's really good with raisins, brown sugar, and walnuts.

Of course, rice is good for lunch and dinner but watch out for fried rice. If you have a choice (which you always do)choose steamed rice over fried.

What about rice for a snack? Eat half a cup of those dinner left overs. Rice desserts? Try this simple recipe for cooking rice pudding.