Homemade Rice Grits

We eat rice grits regularly now-- at least twice a week. This makes boxed grits a bit pricey. So I make my own!

HOMEMADE RICE GRITS

Ingredients: Rice


Place a bag of rice in the freezer. I hear that it usually takes about 30 minutes to freeze rice, but I usually put mine in the night before. Pour 2-3 cups of rice into the blender. Blend for 1-2 minutes until you can see no more big chunks of rice. It takes a good, sharp blender for this. My old one does not chop them nearly as fine as my new one (Read my post about my blender). Pour the blended rice into a sifter or strainer. Sift the rice grits out. They are what's left in the sifter. What's in the bowl underneath is cream of rice-- so make a Fufu Cake!! I grind 6 pounds (3 bags) of rice a week. This gives me 8 cups of cream of rice to make into two Fufu Cakes and one batch of cream of rice for breakfast, and also gives me two days (7 cups) worth of rice grits. These grits are just like the ones in the box and work exactly the same in any grit recipe (Here's mine!)

My New Blender

I have a really great blender. Really. White, glass jar, crunches ice. Sure, I melted the front in a mishap with the electric skillet, but, hey, it isn't THAT bad. Adds character. It's an old friend--- and essential for making rice milk, which is essential for our casein-free life.

But then I lost the O-ring. 

I have really great children. Really. In the process of raising responsible citizens, they help with the dishes. In the process of raising responsible citizens, the O-ring disappeared. 

But I needed rice milk. Right. Then. Argh. 

So I went to Wal-Mart and picked up a new blender. Need it with a food processor, too? Sure. Why not? 

Of course (of course!) as soon as I got home I found the old O-ring. Score. 2 blenders! And they have really come in handy with the amount of chopping and pureeing I do. The new blender made me realize how dull the blade of the old one had gotten over time. The new Oster blender can blend smoothies and rice milk much creamier than the other blender. 

So here is my recipe for Rice Milk:

RICE MILK

1 cup brown rice

6 cups water

1/2 tsp salt

Put the brown rice in a small crockpot and add 6 cups of water.

Cover and cook from 3-6 hours, the longer the better. Let cool.

Put half of the rice into a blender. Add water to fill. Blend for 1-2 minutes on high. 

Pour through a strainer into a large pitcher. 

Put remaining rice into the blender. Add water to fill and 1/2 tsp salt. Blend for 1-2 minutes on high.

Now here's the tricky part:

Pour the rice milk from blender into the pitcher with the rest. Then pour it from the pitcher back into the blender, and then into the pitcher, and then the blender. You get the idea. The turbidity of the pouring liquid mixes the two batches more effectively than a spoon. Chill. 

*****

I'll be making a batch of this in just a few minutes. Right after I find that O-ring...

photo courtesy of: http://khuzama.edu.glogster.com/brown-rice/