Magical millet, back from the dead!

[dreamshark]

Back in the 70's and 80's, when I lived near Seward Coop, we ate a lot of brown rice. But sometimes you don't feel like waiting for 45 minutes for the brown rice to cook, and that's where millet comes in. It cooks in less than half the time, and does pretty much anything brown rice can do but with less gravitas. Millet is so sunny and fluffy and happy that it hardly even feels like a Healthy Whole Grain. Anyway, when we moved to the west side of town we moved a couple of jars of it with us, and then kind of forgot about it. Anyway, I can't remember the last time I cooked millet, but there it was on the shelf with the rice and beans, just taking up space. There is even a jar of what appears to be RED millet, although I have no idea why I bought that. Probably because it just looked so pretty in the tall clear containers at the coop. 

It had been there so long, I was in favor of throwing it out or feeding it to the birds, but Richard protested at the idea of wasting food, even decades old food. I sniffed it and it smelled fine - none of that musty smell you get with rancid oils. So I threw a cup of it into the Instant Pot with 1-3/4 cup water, cooked it for 10 minutes, and voila! 



Not having a stir fry to serve it with, I tarted it up with butter and ground nuts and a little bit of syrup and had Breakfast for Lunch. OMG, I had forgotten how great millet is! Maybe I'll try the red millet next.

Comments

[quadong]

OK, I'm sold, I'll buy some millet for my bunker.

[ihavenoarms]

looks good

[pameladean]

I'm impressed by the keeping quality!

When I was learning vegan cooking, I came across a vast strata of recipes that said "serve over millet" or "serve with millet, rice, or bread." I did cook with millet for a while, but it became far more expensive than rice at some point and I fell out of the habit. This was easier because, although I am sure they are out there, I really wanted recipes that incorporated millet in a different fashion -- millet pilaf, or warm or cold millet salad, or whatever -- and at the time I couldn't find any. Things are probably different now.

P.

[dreamshark]

You could always get millet cheap at the coops, but I don't think I've ever seen it for sale in grocery stores. When I looked up how to cook millet in an Instant Pot I ran across a recipe for Millet Breakfast Cake that you might possibly like. It sounded good, but it was so aggressively Vegan that I was put off by it. I mean no, I am not going to go out and buy almond milk and almond flour and make fake eggs out of flax seed just to try this recipe. But since you might actually be allergic to some of the components that this cook was so assiduously avoiding, you might like to try it. I'll text you a link.

[pameladean]

As you know, I got it!

Flax eggs have NEVER worked for me, imparting a weird thready texture and a bad taste to everything. But I have other methods. *nods mysteriously*

I'm also dubious about buying a very expensive oil and will probably relapse upon either olive or canola

I don't usually have almond flour around either, but ever since I discovered that the almond cookies sometimes offered by Chinese restaurants in lieu of or in addition to fortune cookies are made with almond flour, I've wanted to try making a version friendly to me. So I don't mind acquiring that.

P.

[dreamshark]

I'm sure you can get all of these ingredients at the Wedge.

[bibliofile]

That looks quite tasty! Glad that it didn't taste like its age.

[laramie]

Thanks for the tip! I have not tried millet, though I went through a bulgar period and concocted a bulgar burger recipe that was pretty good.