Happy Super Bowl Day! This morning I began my day by making some delicious hot cereal — Cream of Rice — from scratch. I remember having Cream of Rice when I was a kid, made from a box of Nabisco Cream of Rice Cereal. We also had Nabisco Cream of Wheat Cereal. Yum!
The recipe that I used today is from George Ohsawa's book, Zen Macrobiotics, page 62.
4 tablespoons of freshly milled, toasted short-grain brown rice
3 cups of water (I used filtered well water)
sea salt to taste
First, I toasted some organic brown rice on a pan in my toaster oven. To my surprise, some of the kernels actually popped like popcorn! And they tasted good too! Anyway, after I toasted the rice, I put some of it into a small coffee grinder that I have dedicated for grinding grain only, and I ground it into a fine flour. I figure that I'm not going to "burn" or over-grind the flour this way because I'm doing it in small amounts and not taking that much time to do it.
Meanwhile, I set a 2-quart-size pot (my beloved old Revere Ware pan) on the stove with three cups of water to boiling. The pot is tall enough, I thought, for the rice flour not to spill over the sides while cooking.
After I ground four tablespoons of flour, I poured it into the boiling water and added some unrefined Celtic sea salt. It immediately started to bubble and sizzle and rise up the insides of the pot. So I turned down the heat and stirred the contents with a spoon to calm it down. Then I set the timer for 22 minutes and kept an eye on it every once in awhile as it cooked on a low boil.
The recipe said to "add water as necessary" so I figured that meant it would boil down quickly into a thick consistency, but I guess I didn't have it hot enough because it was still pretty watery after 22 minutes. When the timer went off, I turned the heat up and stood there with my spoon ready in case it started to boil over or got stuck to the bottom of the pot and cooked it for another 3 or 4 minutes. It turned out perfect! But I actually didn't know that until after I spooned it into my bowl and allowed it to cool. As it cooled down, it started to thicken up (or "gel") to the right consistency that I was expecting.
Well I can honestly say that this dish was very satisfying. Now we'll see how long it "sticks with me" before I get hungry for something else to eat!
