Do you make a rice/grain blend? What 's in yours?

[Emaye]

I am having fun mixing rice/grain blends.  I just did mine for the month just now and I thought I would post about it.  The one I mixed today has: White rice, brown rice, red (wild rice), green millet, yellow millet, white millet, buckwheat, quinoa, and barely.  I love it!

We have been doing this for a while and it just makes it easy to get a bunch of things at once (nutritionally speaking) than cooking all the grains separately.  It works really well for us.

[HappyHappyMommy]

I've mixed brown and white rice, but haven't tried mixing other grains. This would be fun to try! Has anyone else tried this? Any other suggestions for mixes?
 

[Emaye]

Originally Posted by HappyHappyMommy 

I've mixed brown and white rice, but haven't tried mixing other grains. This would be fun to try! Has anyone else tried this? Any other suggestions for mixes?
 

We used to eat plain white rice.  Then I started mixing millet -- a sprinkle at first and a bit more later.  Then came brown rice and sometimes black/purple rice.  Slowly I modified our rice into a multi-grain mix and because it was so gradual, no complaints from my kids!  Right now white rice is 1/5th of the mix.  The thing I love about it is, it also looks really beautiful when you serve it -- especially with wild rice! 

[HappyHappyMommy]

We eat a lot quinoa and some millet and barley. I can't believe it never occurred to me to mix them!
 

[MaryMarg]

I'm not an especially savvy cook--how do you cook all these grains together since they have different cooking times?  Add them at various intervals of the cooking or just dump them in and go?  How much water to use?  Thanks!
 

[Emaye]

I use a rice cooker.  I generally soak the mix in the rice cooker for half a day and then turn it on when it is time for a meal.  So, it all comes out great.  The way I measure water is by putting my hand flat on the rice in the container and filling the water until it reaches to the bones above my fingers... I hope this description makes sense? We eat tons of grain/rice mixes so a rice cooker is an important tool in our house.

Here, I found something similar and she explains how to cook it without a rice cooker so maybe this is helpful? http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/tokyo-five-grain-recipe.html

I would leave the salt out of the linked recipe and replace with whatever grain is available for you and just eat it the way you eat regular rice.  We generally cook lentil curry, or some other saucy dish to go with it.  It is pretty great :)

[meemee]

wow. i never thought of cooking grains together.

cooking is a hobby of mine and my mind is just protesting cooking quinoa with brown rice due to the different cooking times (esp. since i hate overcooking quinoa). i have super sensitive taste buds and can taste overcooked

i wish wish wish they'd treat barley as oats and roll them (and have them commonly available) so they'd cook in 5 minutes instead of an hour or more.

i love barley. rolled barley is DELICIOUS as long as its not overcooked. then it turns to mush.

i can see myself cooking buckwheat and quinoa since they both take about 15 minutes. what i love about these two grains is that i bring the water to a boil with the stuff already in it, and then i cover it and turn it off and it cooks perfectly in the trapped heat. or millet and amaranth together since they both take 25 mins. and maybe 5 to 10 minutes to sit.

certain rice i just love their flavor. like jasmine, basmati and i'd hate to mix them.

but hey i have cooked lentils and rice together. and even cooked soaked beans and brown rice together.