I apologize for the lack of blog entries recently. There have been some things going on in my personal life that have been taking up my time, but I am working on producing more blogs of interest!
The past few days I have had quinoa flakes for breakfast. I miss oatmeal, and since the mornings have been chilly I have wanted something hearty and warming to entice me from bed. The quinoa flakes are good, but this morning I decided to go with something I learned about from a Russian woman who stayed with us a couple of years ago.
Kasha traditionally is any porridge made from whole grains, for this posting we will focus on buckwheat (which, outside Slavic countries seems to be what kasha refers to). As I have mentioned before, buckwheat isn’t really a grain, it’s a seed that is a relative to rhubarb (and therefore gluten free). Buckwheat helps with cardiovascular health, can stabilize blood sugar levels, and is high in fiber and antioxidants. Plus it keeps you full and satisfied for a while.
You can have both sweet and savory kasha, but for my breakfast today I went with sweet. I also prefer the un-toasted buckwheat groats to the toasted. I find the aroma of toasted buckwheat to be a bit too much for me. When we had our Russian house guest I recall her cooking up a huge pot of it with apples, and because she used toasted buckwheat, the aroma was not exactly what I would call “pleasant”. She tried to get me to eat some, but at the time I wasn’t aware that buckwheat wasn’t really a grain, and she also used a big glob of butter. I am definitely a convert now, though for the time being I think I will stick with the un-toasted ;-)
Basic Kasha Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 C. Un-toasted Buckwheat groats
- 2 C. Water
- 1/4 tsp. Sea Salt
Method:
- Rinse the buckwheat in running water and pick through to make sure there aren’t any stones or bad seeds.
- In a small to medium sized pot, bring the salted water to a boil and add the buckwheat, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 10-15 minutes or until water is absorbed.
That is the basic recipe, but I also added 1.5 tsp. cinnamon to the boiling water.
Once the kasha was cooked I added chopped up apple to it and a few raisins, I then let it cook a little longer to heat the apple through. I topped it with a huge dollop of peanut butter and a few drops of stevia. It was delicious!
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Sorry to hear about the personal stuff – hope all is well!
I’ve had a bag of buckwheat groats in my pantry for a few weeks now and I’ve never really known what to do with them (ideally I was going to make something sprouted or raw) but this looks really good. And isn’t everything made better with peanut butter and apples?
I know what you mean about buckwheat. I had it in a PCC energy bar and I could taste it and was fine with it, but Chris thought it was awful. It almost has a smoky flavor – sorta hard to describe. I wouldn’t RUN to it, but I don’t mind it. I think I like it in sweet over savory too!
The un-toasted stuff barely has a scent at all, and to me tastes just like brown rice. Have you had the un-toasted?
[...] started off my day with another big bowl of Kasha, this time I added Mimiccreme coffee creamer to make it um…creamier, and extra messy with [...]