Month: December 2008

This morning we had “Blender Waffles” made with uncooked long grain brown rice. How neat is that? If you’re like me, you didn’t know you could do such a thing without grinding your brown rice into rice flour first. Don’t have a grain mill? Got a tough blender? Read on.

One of my homeschool mom friends gave me an early Christmas present: Sue Gregg’s Breakfasts…with Blender Batter Baking Allergy Alternatives cookbook. Now I’ve always known that baking bread with whole grains that you’ve milled into flour yourself was best for my family, but this cookbook explains why in detail. Ever wonder why your typical white flour at the store is “enriched”? Because white flour doesn’t have all the life-sustaining nutrients that whole wheat flour has. So they’ve enriched it with iron and three synthetic B-vitamins, but that doesn’t nearly replace the more than 30 nutrients nor the fiber that’s been lost. The calcium content of whole grains, for instance, is four times that of white flour.

This cookbook doesn’t stop at explaining the various kinds of grains and which ones are more easily digested by allergy sufferers…Spelt, Kamut, Hard Red Winter and Spring Wheats, Hard White Wheat, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, Corn, Oats, Brown Rice, Barley, Rye, Millet, Triticale, Buckwheat, Sorghum, Quinoa, Amaranth, Teff, and Wild Rice…it also goes into how to make homemade yogurt, your own cereals, blender batters, how to store your grains, where to find these grains, shopping lists, plus nutritional info on fruits, eggs, milks, nuts, etc. And a ton of nutritious tasty-sounding breakfast recipes.

This is a cooking textbook! A must have for any serious homemaker.

I devoured this book in two late night reading sessions–it’s that eye-opening! But the light really went on when I came to the section on “Whole Grain Blender Magic!”. Wow. You don’t need a grain mill if you have a good quality blender! To test your blender, throw some ice cubes in it and see if it will crush them. I didn’t think my blender was that great–after all, it’s 15 years old and smells hot every time I use it, but my good ole Osterizer came through for me for these waffles! Worked great.

Sue Gregg not only gives specific blender recipes, she tells you how to adapt the process to your favorite recipes. Now you can’t make yeast breads, cookie doughs or biscuits in your blender, because blender recipes rely on more liquids than you need for those things. But for waffles, pancakes, muffins, coffee cakes, crepes, and corn breads, you’ve got it made!

Now I’m assuming you agree with me that using whole grains is 100% better nutritionally. But get this. The author explains how soaking your grains (which is what you do when you use the blender recipes) for 7 hours or overnight allows the enzymes to break up the phytates in the fibers, allowing your body to get the maximum absorption of all the goodies in your whole grain foods. And talk about convenient. It took me less than five minutes last night to throw some buttermilk, vanilla, olive oil and long grain brown rice in the blender. After blending those for three minutes on high, I followed Sue’s directions on letting it sit in the belnder all night at room temperature. Then this morning we simply added the remaining ingredients, and poured the batter onto my steaming waffle iron…and the waffles were out-of-this-world!!! We all loved them.

To buy the Breakfasts cookbook, go here.

For a free whole foods cooking lesson with Sue, including pictures and recipes, follow this link. Hope you enjoy the blender waffles/pancakes as much as we have!

P.S. Brown Rice is gluten-free, so these pancakes/waffles are gluten-free! At the above link, Sue gives the recipe, but she recommends different combinations of grains. To use her recipe with brown rice only, substitute 1 cup raw brown rice…