Whether you are nursing or not, these grains would add such a nutritious boost to any diet – fiber, protein, manganese, magnesium, you name it. All these grains can be made into a porridge-like breakfast cereal, and many of the recipes are basically: cook in 3 parts water for “x” amount of time, drizzle with honey, and top with toasted coconut flakes, dried or fresh fruits and nuts with a dash of cinnamon. You can even tend to some grains for a few days with some water baths to form sprouts for your sandwiches and salads! They are also all available in flour form, but I’ll save the flour uses for a future post and focus on using them as whole grains for now.

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I’ve tried to compile several recipes for each grain so you can use up a conveniently-sized bag from the good folks at Bob’s Red Mill, or buy just enough to try out for one recipe from the bulk section of a local store. Many of the recipes I’ve selected are from those good folks at Bob’s Red Mill (the ones that have ratings seem to be five stars), and I’ve tried to make sure they are all relatively simple to execute. I recently picked up Lorna Sass’s book, Whole Grains Every Day Every Way, from the library, and I think is a fabulous foundation for starting out using grains. It feels like this book has every recipe you could ever need for any grain you could imagine, and it makes the internet’s recipe offerings looks sparse.

A M A R A N T H

Amaranth is an American seed packed with 16% protein. In Heidi Swanson’s book, Super Natural Cooking, she describes it as having ” a texture that pops in the mouth and a pronounced green spiciness that aligns it more closely in flavor to quinoa than to some of the other true grains, like wheat and oats. Many recipes can benefit from its addition, from biscuits and pancakes to tart crusts and granola bars.” Her Savory Amaranth Souffle seems like an ingenious use of a surprisingly versatile grain – toasted amaranth seeds line ramekins filled with a cheesy-fondue style amaranth batter. I am a huge fan of her other title, Super Natural Everyday (thank you @Mrs. Pen for your great cookbook post), and I think both are worth putting on hold at your local library to check out, and I’m really tempted to finally buy the one title because everything I’ve tried in it has been amazing. The recipes are actually relatively simple and are nowhere near as involved as the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.

Amaranth can be popped in batches, although Sass says that at best, only 20 percent of the seeds actually pop:

Over high heat, add half a tablespoon of amaranth, cover immediately, and cook, shaking constantly until the grains are all popped, no longer than 30 seconds. Transfer to a bowl and continue with another tablespoon. Popped amaranth can be added to soups, salads, for breading tofu and meat, and eaten as some sort of savory popcorn.

It apparently cooks up pretty sticky and can of course be made into a porridge, used to thicken soups, or combined with other grains with a ratio of 1/4 cup amaranth to 3/4 cup other grain.

It does savory well with butter, olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, oregano, corn, sesame seeds, and fresh ginger, and it does sweet well with vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, banana, and winter squash. Here are some other ways to use it:

 

B A R L E Y

Apparenlty barley is the “chicken” of the grain world and can go with just about anything with its mild, faintly sweet taste. Hulled barley, also known as barley groats, is the whole grain form of barley, with only the outermost hull removed. Chewy and rich in fiber, it is the most nutritious barley. However, it takes longer to cook than pearl barley – about an hour or more. Pearl barley is the most common form, takes 40 minutes to cook, and most recipes that call for “barley” intend for this form. Hulled barley can be substituted but cooking times will need to be prolonged and the end result won’t be as creamy.

Pairs with:

  • Savory: butter, browned onions, mushrooms, lamb, beef, celery, tomatoes, green peas, root vegetables, dill, oregano.
  • Sweet: dried fruit, honey, cinnamon and other sweet spices, apples.

B R O W N  R I C E

I’ll be honest – I’m not a big rice fan, and I’m even less of a brown rice fan. I find it dry. Bring on the wild rice, although I’ve just learned it’s not even a rice, it’s an aquatic grass. I’ve been meaning to convert a kheer recipe of mine into a brown rice form, but I haven’t gotten the coconut milk/milk ratio correct yet.

 

B U C K W H E A T 

Buckwheat is a good source of fiber, at 5g per 1/4 cup. Buckwheat groats are the hulled seeds of the buckwheat plant, a fruit seed and not a cereal plant. Groats can be steam-cooked like rice for salads and side dishes. Kasha is roasted buckwheat (aha! now I know what kasha is), which has an assertive flavor that is not for everyone. It is great as hot porridge, pilaf, or in countless traditional Eastern European dishes such as Kasha Varnishkes or Potato and Kasha Knishes. Kasha can also be added to soups and casseroles for a nutritious boost.

Pairs with:

  • Savory: fresh and dried mushrooms, bacon, sausage, chicken, browned or caramelized onions, butter, sour cream, cottage cheese, salon, roasted cashew nuts, dill, thyme*.
  • Sweet: dried apples

 

C O R N M E A L

My husband and I took a cruise two years ago and had an amazing Italian meal in one of the specialty restaurants on board. I discovered the delicious creamy, buttery carbohydrate on my dish was polenta. You can imagine my surprise when I came home to realize that polenta is essentially grits. I bought a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Polenta. Bringing me such neatly packaged hits as chia seeds, steel cut oats, and any random grain I could ever fathom, how could Bob’s steer me wrong? I made my polenta, judiciously following Bob’s instructions, baby-sitting my pot on the stove and stirring constantly. It came out like bland, dry grits. But I have now discovered polenta’s best kept secret recipe, thanks to the >a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Monkey-Food-Loving-Fathers-Adventurous/dp/0547336896/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402424115&sr=1-1&keywords=hungry+monkey” target=”_Blank”>Hungry Monkey.

No-Fail Polenta

 Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together 1 cup polenta and 4 cups of water in a large pyrex, and add 1 Tbsp butter. Bake uncovered 45 minutes. Stir and continue baking until it reaches the desired consistency, about 15 more minutes. Add salt, butter, and parmigiano-reggiano to taste.

Corn bread? Hush puppies? Some people press it into a tray to sit overnight then cut into sticks and fry. I’m not even going to pretend I know what I’m talking about because I’m from the Pacific Northwest. Here’s some recipes that use some of the other grains on this list.

Pair grits with:
  • chile peppers, bell peppers, ham and pork, tomatoes, cumin, corn, beans

Pair polenta with:

  • braised meats, tomatoes, cheese (parmesan, romano, gorgonzola), butter, olive oil, black pepper
M I L L E T

Millet is, yes, those little yellow balls in birdseed mixes. It is high in fiber (3g per 1/4 cup) and a good source of magnesium and iron. Most millet in the US is “proso millet,” which is unfortunately grown in China. Look for foxtail millet, which is grown in Canada, if possible.

Swanson uses millet for Fried “Rice” with toasted sesame oil, and it can be easily used to replace rice in general as highlighted in Bob’s Red Mill Millet Stir Fry. It can also replace couscous (which is just a lowly pasta, not even a grain) in stuffed pepper or  stuffed tomato recipes. Sass uses it to replace couscous, to form croquettes, and to layer into casseroles.

Add 1/3 cup millet to any banana bread or zucchini bread recipe for a delightful crunch. Here’s my absolute favorite – Crunchy Millet Low Fat Banana Bread

Pairs well with:

  • Savory: butter, oil, eggs, thyme* and other fresh herbs, mushrooms, browned onions, sour cream, crème fraiche, buttermilk, black pepper, chives and scallions, feta cheese. olives
  • Sweet: squash, carrots, beets, honey, sweet spices like cinnamon, anise seeds, and nutmeg

O A T S

Oat groats are the whole, unbroken grain of oat – groat is an old Scottish word that describes an hulled oat kernel. It is the least processed. Steel cut oats are made from oat groats that have been chopped with steel blades, and it is perhaps just as nutritious. Old-fashioned oats (aka rolled oats) are chopped, steamed, and pressed to give them their flatter shape. Quick and instant (pressed even thinner than quick oats) oatmeal usually have their oat bran removed, and much of the vitamins and fiber as well. My father swears by steel cut oats – it keeps him full all day with its low glycemic index, and has actually helped his cholesterol levels. The package says to boil for 10 minutes, but here’s how he makes it each night, which has got to be easy peasy because I’ve rarely seen him heat soup on a stove nevermind cook:

Bring 3-4 cups filtered water to boil then add 1 cup of steel cut oats (unfiltered water may leave a harmless green film). Cover and let sit for about an hour or until all the water is absorbed, then refrigerate overnight.

He then eats it with honey and cinnamon. I was actually surprised that it tastes good and sweet just on its own. Seriously. And it kind of tastes like this amazingly plain Ukrainian Christmas dessert I grew up on, Kutya, but one million times easier because wheat berries take forever and a day to cook.

I’ve seen other overnight steel cut oat recipes that just let it sit out on the stove all night, but since I feed this to my kiddo under 1, I like to refrigerate it before I go to bed. Most of the “overnight oatmeal” recipes I’ve seen on pinterest involve rolled oats, but here’s one that is not only refrigerated, requires no cooking (?!), and has the added lactogenic benefit of flax seeds and nut butter:  Overnight Steel Cut Oats 

I’m trying to wrap my head around savory ideas, but then I think, how different of a base is it really, compared to something like congee? Here are 19 Sweet and Savory toppings ideas that I think could really transcend all the grains including:

Pairs well with:
  • Savory: thyme*, carrots, celery, mushrooms, walnuts
  • Sweet: dried and fresh fruit, cinnamon, sugar, maple syrup

Q U I N O A 

Quinoa, an ancient Incan “pseudo-grain” (actually a seed, but cooked like a whole grain) is probably what people are most familiar with on this list, besides rice and oats. I love, love, love its light, fluffy texture. It is a “good source of dietary fiber” (actually only 2g per 1/4, which is less than half of some of these other grains).  Is it just me or has the price at Costco sky-rocketed to more than $20 for a small bag? I remember reading an article years ago that North Americans had popularized this South American food staple to the point that the indigenous people could not afford to eat it. I hope my $20 bag can help a farmer and his family to eat what they harvest. Quinoa probably boasts the most recipes of these grains, including breakfast dishes, but I’ll just list a few and maybe let you chime in and tell me your favorite quinoa dish (or other grains if you’ve used them!).

Pairs well with:

  • Savory: corn, black beans, avocado, olive oil, lemon and lime juice, oregano, chile peppers, cilantro, tomatoes, red bell bepper
  • Sweet: fresh ginger, honey

*avoid large amounts of parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and peppermint if lactating