DIY healthy grain cereal

April 8, 2007 7:27 PM

Where are some good recipes for making your own cracked wheat cereal, combined with other grains like millet, quinoa, etc?

We have a pounds of wheat, a wheat grinder, millet, quinoa, hulled barley, etc. and want to combine it to make a nice slow-cooking breakfast cereal. We have a pressure cooker, rice cooker, crockpot, etc. but for some reason I'm having a hard time finding some good recipes for combining the grains, ratios, etc. and cooking them up.

posted by craniac to Health & Fitness (4 answers total)

Best answer: I've made plenty of this stuff, and I never used a recipe. Don't overthink it.

I throw a handful of whole grain into a grinder, crack it, and then repeat with the other grains, then mix them in a container and there you are. The ratios are down to your personal tastes.

Then, to cook, put some to soak when you go to bed, and then simmer it for ~20min when you wake up and want breakfast.

The caveat is that some grains cook faster than others, and might not need a soak or grinding. Quinoa, for instance, might be great in this type of cereal, but I'd just rinse it in the morning (to remove the saponin), and throw it into the already soaked harder grains. That way it would all be done about the same time.

You can serve it sweet or savory, that's down to taste, too.
posted by OmieWise at 7:58 AM on April 9, 2007

Response by poster: Ok! thanks!

Yeah I was wondering about the relative cooking times of the grains, and I'm also not sure how grinding it will affect those times, but I suppose I can grind some and store it separately and figure it out. Thanks for responding. Posting on a Sunday night is a surefire way to doom your post to obscurity, given the monday morning rollover. Plus, grains aren't all that exciting.
posted by craniac at 10:59 AM on April 9, 2007

Best answer: Well, for hard whole grains (wheat berries, brown rice, whole rye, barley) they will take forever (ok, and hour) to cook if you don't crush them in the grinder and soak them. When I grind them I don't do it for long, just long enough to break the kernels, although you can do it for longer if you want a smoother porridge. For other cooking grains, you'll be able to find out how long they cook (steel cut oats, quinoa, millet~20 minutes) and add them accordingly.

I tend to make a less-smooth porridge, but you can mill everything down and get it as smooth as you want. The smoother the quicker it will cook. The other thing is that porridge is a complex beast, with many different textures, so it's ok if smaller particles are relatively overcooked (the form the creamy base) and larger particles are still chewy (they form the tooth of the dish). There's no way to get complete consistency unless you take everything to flour, anyway.
posted by OmieWise at 11:54 AM on April 9, 2007

Response by poster: I have a hand grinder to use for the cracked stuff, and an electric grinder for the finer milling. I may use a crockpot the night before too, although I might still need to soak. Thanks, you are both Omie and Wise. I may start googling "porridge" as well.
posted by craniac at 1:39 PM on April 9, 2007