Grains & Rice

The many different mushrooms at your supermarket are all prized for their deep earthy flavours and unique textures. These distinctive vegetables are uniquely the above-the-ground fruit of a below-the-ground fungus. Mushrooms are at their meaty best in a batch of slowly simmering barley cooked like a batch of classic risotto. You’ll fill more than Half Your Plate with this hearty dish!

You can fill more than Half Your Plate with this traditional Indian dish. It’s a complete vegetarian meal and a super-simple way to fill all your plate with big flavour and a last-second blast of dark green nutrition. You’ll love the bright finishing touch baby spinach adds to the dish and how easy it is to try this healthy trick anytime you cook up your favourite soup, stew or pasta!

This is one of my favourite variations on a classic rice pilaf. It's spiced up with vibrant curry, colourful saffron, and succulent sweet potatoes which, ounce for ounce, are one of the most nutritionally dense vegetables readily available.

For a meal befitting of the lords and ladies in your life, pack this fragrant rice into small bowls and ramekins, then inverse onto the serving plates. Top with a sprig or two cilantro before surrounding the rice with some sautéed shrimp or steamed mussels.

A simple rice dish full of Southwestern Flavour.

We’re all trying to eat more veggies and convince those around us to do the same. They’re good for you but they can also be fast, flexible and delicious! Here’s a speedy veggie dish that will have them coming back for more!

Risotto is one of the world’s great rice dishes. It’s a traditional Italian dish that must be made from rice varieties with very high starch contents. Its distinctive cooking method gently coaxes the starches out of each rice grain, giving the dish its characteristic creaminess. An exercise in patience, but the results are more than worth the effort!

This simple, versatile rice pilaf is distinguished by its method of sautéing the grains briefly in oil or butter before adding liquid which adds flavour and helps the grains stay fluffy and separate. Rice pilaf is also a great jumping-off point for freestyle flavouring.

This is one of my all-time favourite comfort foods. Just like high-starch rice, barley may be simmered and stirred into a smooth, creamy risotto, absorbing the flavour of the bacon and rich chicken broth as it slowly cooks. The results are richly flavoured and deeply satisfying.

Whole grains are one of the tastiest, healthiest and most versatile ingredients in your kitchen. They’re also one of the easiest to cook. They simply need to simmer in water until they’re tender and ready to enjoy by themselves or as an ingredient in many other dishes.

Quinoa (pronounced keen-wuh) is one of the healthiest foods on the planet, and packed with vitamins, minerals and protein. It’s actually a seed not a grain, but it’s cooked like a grain. The rich nutty taste is perfect in a pilaf, but it’s just as good stirred into any salad. Because of its flavour, ease of cooking and high nutritional value, quinoa is one of the most common foods on my table.

Couscous is a grain-like form of pasta made from semolina flour, the same flour used to make pasta. It’s very common throughout the Mediterranean and North Africa. In Morocco it’s often served with dried fruits and nuts and lots of mysterious aromatic spiciness.

Brown Rice with Apples