Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way
Lorna Sass
Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way
Clarkson Potter, New York, 2006
Cookbook author Lorna Sass is an enthusiastic “foodie” with a passion for delicious wholesome ingredients. An adventurer, she spent time in the Kamut grain fields of Montana and among sprays of quinoa ripening in the highland Andes of Ecuador. Her experiences gave her a new appreciation for the nutritious whole grains she loves to cook. Instead of just plucking them off the market shelf as she once did, her global encounter with grains made her truly “understand how hard farmers work to grow them, and how long a journey these nutritious kernels make before arriving in our kitchens.” Sass shares her grain wisdom in Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way as she demystifies selecting, storing and turning a wide range of whole grains into healthful, great tasting meals. Moving through familiar grains such as oats and barley, and introducing the more exotic types including triticale, sorghum, teff and Jacob’s tears, Whole Grains is an amaranth-to-wheat berries grain guide.
The details of each grain family is discussed, followed by basic cooking instructions for each, then suggestions on how to add spices and other compatible foods to produce the tastiest flavor from the most basic dish. The easy-to-follow and straightforward directions allow even the most timid cook to venture from brown rice to Bhutanese red or black Japonica. Mail order sources are provided for some of the harder to find ingredients. Over 150 recipes are included, ranging from Farro Risotto with Butternut Squash and Sage to Thai Chicken Soup with Chinese Black Rice to Coconut-Black Rice Pudding. Though not all the recipes are vegetarian or vegan, many can easily be adapted. My sister, who cooks for her family of both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, gifted me with a copy of Whole Grains, and it’s the cookbook most often found open on our kitchen counter.
