Rice Is CHEAP!

[pow121]

As a Bachelor trying to keep my costs down, I'm finding that rice is really, really cheap, and it can make your meals last way longer.

I can turn a single stir-fry meal into TWO stir-fry meals simply by cooking some wild rice and spreading the fry across the top of the rice.

And it doesn't even really change the flavor all that much.

If rice bothers you, you can use Quinoa as well! It's a neat ancient grain that's really good for your digestive system. It's like little round pieces of rice, with even less taste (you can even mix it with fruit!).

[brigid]

Rice is a well known life saver. It makes a meal out of not a lot of other ingredients. I have frequently made an omelet of 4 eggs beaten with a couple of tsps of soy sauce, with slices of onion added, and lightly browned on each side, then served over hot rice with a little added soy sauce drizzled over the top. There is another sauce you can make, too. It is nampla with a little lemon jiuce stirred in. Nampla is Thai fish sauce. It may sound dreadful, but it is very nice over the omelet. This is another cheap and easy way to have a filling dinner.

[brigid]

Also you may add a bit of cayenne to the nampla/lemon juice sauce.

[pow121]

Nampla? Is it something you just pick up at the grocery store? I've never heard of it haha...

[brigid]

You can usually find it in the oriental foods section of the grocery store, or if you can't, you can get it at any Chinese grocery store even though it is a Thai product. They have something also called Nuoc Mom or something that is about the same thing, but it is Viet Namese.

[Cassie-Jane]

Anyone tried Couscous???? Another thing that is cheep and goes a long way...............

[brigid]

I have used couscous and I liked it very much. I don't remember the dish I made, though, but I know couscous was very easy to make, very versatile and good, too. I would recommend anyone who hasn't tried it to TRY it, wouldn't you? How did you use it?

[eclecticsynergy]

The best thing about couscous is that it's really FAST, about five minutes versus 40 mins for rice... I usually make mine with chicken or vegetable broth, a great quick & easy side- or add legumes of some sort and some collards or kale and it can be a super easy main dish. I keep cans of blackeyed peas and chickpeas around for just such an occasion. And I've taken to always keeping a bag of peas in the freezer- for a lazy day meal I'll get a pint of rice from the Chinese place across the street and nuke some peas, add butter and Herbamare or a splash of soy... not exactly a balanced meal, but it's fast, tasty, satisfying comfort food. Good complement to soup or a salad.

[dazaga]

I LOVE cooking with rice! It's true it can be used as a 'filler' and stretch your more expensive ingredients - but depending how you fix it, the rice itself can be quite tasty. All kinds of fried rice (Vietnamese Fried Rice is a favorite), rice and curry, chicken and rice casserole (one time I made this someone thought it was potatoes!) are fun and tasty. If you want more rice ideas, look outside your traditional American cookbooks (although they generally have a few good rice casseroles as well). Most of the eastern world and Central/South America eats rice, and they've figured out some pretty tasty ways of cooking. :-)

[Rozzer]

And keep in mind that white rice (not brown rice) keeps for years! (If you make sure the bugs don't get into it.) If you buy it in bulk (and almost all supermarkets now sell very large size bags of rice) you'll wind up paying about a nickel a serving. There was a sale at a large chain supermarket here (no substantial Asian population, so it wasn't for them) and I was able to buy 25 lbs. of top-label imported Thai Basmati rice for twelve dollars. For us that's about a five-year supply. Brown rice won't keep for more than about six months, because the oils in the surface go rancid - best to store it in the fridge.