whole wheat couscous -

by gansie

The Search Continues: Bulk Bin #3387

The grains from bulk bin #3387 are about to be shown Who Is Boss. I’m tired of #3387 mocking me as I push past it to reach for properly labeled grains. I will figure out what the fuck this grain is and use that entire bag in one sitting. So. There.

In case you are wondering what I’m talking about, last week I pleaded for someone to come forward and name this unmarked grain I had sitting in my cabinet. To recap…

We had a few guesses:

NeeNee: really short grain brown rice or wheat berries
AW: some sort of barley
Maids: yellow dent corn from the Andes. Or Kamut.
dosdos, negged those guesses: I’m pretty sure farro is longer than that. Kamut’s pretty long and narrow. Wheat berries is a good guess but it doesn’t have the line down the middle splitting it in half like a little long booty…. I’m really leaning towards rice.
Danielle: Amaranth?
ajjelibean: Does raw sunflower kernels from Tree of Life sound familiar?

But no one could claim certainty and I have no idea what the Tree of Life is.

Although there were a few other tips. Olga from Mango & Tomato suggested I cook it like brown rice and Brit and westcoast thought I should think just a bit harder where I may have bought the grains to trigger an answer.

My guess is farro because I know that I’ve wanted to try it. But no one thinks that it looks like farro.

Oh well. So here is one last shot. Maids suggested that I show the mystery grain in comparison to other identified grains. See above. Please help.

Who are you bulk bin #3387?!?!

in Veggie 10 comments

by gansie

It Ain’t Just Southern

Editor’s Note: Westcoast and I (gansie!) have been making the rounds to all of the hott spots in DC this season. Of course I’m talking about the farmers’ markets. We’ve visited three locations (Silver Spring, H Street–with sightings of Belmontmedina and Mr. and Mrs. Joe Hoya–and Bloomingdale) and we have many left to scope out. Here’s Westcoast‘s most current inspiration from a market find. And please let us know where we should get our next seasonal fix.

You finally get something out of me…probably two years after gansie and I first discussed…so you know it must be tasty.

I chose okra (and wasn’t the first to do so here on ES). I almost couldn’t help it. Gansie and I were at the Bloomingdale Farmers Market, there was a lone section of okra staring at me. I hadn’t really done much work with it, and it seemed like a challenge. When I picked it up I think gansie lost the ability to speak for a few seconds.

Okra is perhaps one of the most misunderstood vegetables (well, it’s a fruit, technically) around. It is noted for its extremely slimy, gummy or mushy texture in food that is poorly prepared (read: if you are from the North, you probably think it is just one of those silly Southern things like deep fried pickles; if you are from the South, you ate fried okra at some point in your life with varying extreme reactions.) It is native to Africa and if you check out its cross-section, it’s in the shape of a pentagon.

There’s only one dish I have ever had with okra that really made me see its potential: bhindi (okra) masala. I scoured the internet for recipes, took a field trip to an Indian grocery (and nearly lost the liquid from my empty stomach as I saw a whole lamb, legs and all, being hacked up at the butcher) and ended up with something that was pretty phenomenal.

Intense recipe post jump –