Parade.com: Hold the White Rice and Get Your Freekeh On

The Freekeh Cookbook by Bonnie Matthews

Here’s a typical weekday situation: A recipe calls for rice. There’s only 30 minutes for dinner. Healthy brown rice takes 45 minutes, and unhealthy white rice is 15 minutes to cook. When it comes to time, I’m guilty of choosing the latter. I have tricks for using grains in weekday meals, such as doubling the requested amount and storing the difference in the freezer, or cooking slow-cooking grains—such as barley and farro—on weekends.

One of my favorite healthy and quick-cooking grains is whole-wheat couscous. Quinoa is another favorite, but the rinsing process is time-consuming. My recent discovery is freekeh, a familiar grain in Arabic cuisines with a 15 to 20 minute cooking time.

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Tarragon and Pink Peppercorn Chicken Salad

Tarragon & Pink Peppercorn Chicken Salad

It started with an email from JCPenny a few months ago. The PR representative explained they’re changing their brand, and she wanted to give me a $200 gift certificate to spend. It was promptly delivered, and it wasn’t used until recently for the purchase of new bed linens for our new super pillow top comfortable mattress set.

Up until JCPenny contacted me with their much needed gift, my life was a hurricane of stress, sleeplessness nights, and regrets. Then, my life instantaneously started to change. Suddenly, I had a freelance job. As the job gradually started cutting hours, my sudden luck made sure I made a smooth transition into a full-time position as a Graphic Designer with a large Brooklyn non-profit organization. With this new 9 to 5 schedule, the gift certificate remained untouched on my desk until we could determine how to maximize its benefits. Read more