Saturday, March 24, 2012

A Pirate’s Breakfast – B-arrrrrrrrrrr-ley

Say it gruffly and then laugh your head off. It’s that good. Trust me, matey.

Reminds me of the silly joke where a pirate walks into a bar with a ship’s wheel tucked into his pants and a parrot dancing back and forth along the top of it. Bartender asks what the parrot is doing, and the pirate replies “He’s drivin’ me nuts!”

All this for what is in the end a trivial post. I am going to show you the perfect alternative to white rice, an evil food if ever one existed. Now don’t get me wrong … I love Basmati rice. But it is one of those nasty white carbohydrates that triggers a quick insulin response and that cascades to cravings and so on. High glycemic index == bad.

Barrrrrrrrrrley is a low glycemic index food and is good. Or at least much better.

F550EXR  125iso  f/3.5  1/30

This is how it looks after cooking for a while in a rice maker. Looks a lot like rice, no? It also tastes enough like rice to be the perfect match for curries and garlic sauce and such. It is also very filling. I eat 1/4 of this amount at a time.

f550exr  100iso  f/3.5  1/45

I divide the barley with a spatula and save each quarter (which amounts to 1/4 cup dry for those who food log.) They keep in the fridge for quite a while.

The recipe for your rice maker is 1C pot barley, or preferably hulled barley, then four cups water. And let ‘er rip.