The Splendid Grain

This is an Outstanding Cookbook by Rebecca Wood! In this book you won't find much for pictures, it's strong point is the wonderful recipes for Grains with Vegetables, Fish, Poultry, Meat and Fruit. I love it when reviewers list a variety of recipes in a book, that alone will make me want to purchase a book! The Contents are divided into categories such as Native American Grains which include Wild Rice, Corn, Mesquite, Amaranth, and Quinoa. Native Asian Grains which include Buckwheat, Millet, Rice, and Job's Tears. Native Near Eastern Grains which include Barley and Wheat. Native European Grains which include Rye and Oats. And Native African Grains which include Sorghum and Tef. This book also includes Mail Order Sources if needed. There are 394 Pages of information and Fabulous Recipes such as:Wild Rice Tortillas With Poached Huevos Rancheros and Ginger-Peach Salsa, Elderberry Blossom and Wild Rice Griddle Cakes with Hot Apple Syrup, Mom's Wild Rice Stuffing, Whitefish Stuffed With Wild Rice, Traditional Grits, Cornmeal Mush, Posole From Scratch, Creole Corn Oysters, Corn and Clam Chowder with Roasted Parsnips, Herbed Posole Salad with Dried Cranberries, Stir-Fried Dried Scallops with Baby Corn and Bean Sprouts, Southwestern Cheese Sandwiches with Sweet and Hot Pepper Sauce, Greens and Herbed Cornmeal Dumplings with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, Honey Carmel Corn with Roasted Almonds, Sage and Blue Corn Skillet Bread with Fresh Corn, Santa Fe Spoon Bread, Corn Tortillas with Marjoram, Chili Flavored Tortilla Chips, Corn and Quinoa Raspberry Muffins, Hominy Breakfast Cakes, Strawberry and Blue Corn Waffles, Popped Amaranth Cold Breakfast Cereal, Pinon Crackers, Quinoa and WInter Squash Potage, Quinoa Soup-Saigon Style, Quinoa Carrot Cake, Quinoa Butterscotch Brownies, Homemade Buckwheat Noodles, Jicama and Buckwheat Salad, Panfried Buckwheat Breaded Catfish, Baked Blinis with Strawberry Sauce, Buckwheat Rolls with Thyme and Oregano, Buckwheat Waffles with Peach Butter, Buckwheat Pumpkin Muffins, Overnight Millet Buckwheat and Coconut Waffles, Apricot Millet Breakfast Cake, Vietnamese Spring Rolls, Chinese Almond Cookies, Purple Amasake, Barley Poppy Bagels, Barley Flatbread with New Mexican Chilies, Yellow and Purple Bean Tabbouleh, Eggplant Zucchini Tofu and Penne Salad, Dutch Apple Pie, Wheat Pastry for Pies and Tarts, Pueblo Bread Pudding, 100% Whole Wheat Bread, Thin-Crust Pizza, Easy Rye Bread, Boston Brown Bread, Pumpernickel Bread with Currants and Walnuts, Coarse-Grain Sourdough Rye, Cream of Shiitake and Broccoli Soup, Irish Tabbouleh, Orange and Coconut Drop Biscuits, Oat Groat Pancakes, Granola, Vegetable Stock, Chicken Stock, Fish Stock, Shiitake Dashi Stock, Tofu Mayonnaise, and so much more! This is just a sampling of the Varieties of Recipes you'll find in this book. I felt it was important especially in this book of Grains to list many recipes, as you can see these Healthy Grains can be much more than a side dish! You cannot go wrong with this cookbook! If you are looking for different ways to use grains this is definitely the book for you!

Both of us enjoy this cookbook. Many grains are explored and explained.We have had our copy for years and have bought copies as gifts many times.

This book was a bit of a disappointment in terms of the recipes. I got it because I loved the oat risotto recipe, which I found in a Vegetarian magazine. So I thought the book would be a great addition to my library, especially since I decided to cook with more whole grains. However, I don't really use it for the recipes at all. They are way too complex and call for very specific ingredients, leaning towards the macrobiotic diet. Just not practical for me.Having said that, I absolutely love all the information about the grains' history, nutrition, storage, etc.The book is very well organized as well. I learned about a few new grains I've never heard of before: tef and job's tears. So, I find myself very often flipping through the book to remind myself how to cook the very basic recipes (proportions of grain to water) or just reading up on the grains' nutrition again.There are a few recipes I do enjoy, such as the Oat risotto and I discovered gomasio (use it on quinoa). I also LOVE her whole wheat bread recipe. I have passed it on to many of my friends and just that recipe alone has been worth the purchase.I'd recommend this to someone who is a bit of a gourmet in the kitchen or if you are into nutrition and want to learn more about whole grains.

This is one of the greatest cookbooks I have ever owned and I am so glad I found it! For anyone that needs a real crowd pleaser at picnics or parties, the Quinoa Butterscotch Brownies are absolutely superb and every time I make them people croon over how terrific they are. And for those that need it to be so, they are gluten free! They are not healthy by any means, if I remember right there are 2 sticks of butter in them, but they are delicious. Quinoa can be a little irritating to crush into flour in my blender but that is my blender's fault.The other recipes in this book are also terrific and I cannot wait to try the ones that I haven't made yet. She provides information on all of the grains at the beginning of each of their sections as well as a terrific mail order section at the back of the book for those that do not have ready access to these grains in their local grocery store.All in all I highly recommend this book as it is informative and the recipes are tasty. The way it is sectioned by grain is also quite helpful because I do not have something like Tef so if I want a quinoa recipe I don't have to go through tef ones first!

I have been trying to incorporate more whole grains into my families diet for both health and environmental reasons. As such, I have been collecting whole grain cookbooks in order to learn more about using these dietary superstars. This book offers both fascinating background on the origins and uses of the both the well known and the obscure whole grains (I'm still trying to find Job's tears-no luck!) Of all the cookbooks I have, this has the most scholarly, complete, and interesting background information on the different grains.The recipes we have tried (around 10 or so) have all been interesting and delicious (there is one that uses wild rice, blueberries or huckleberries, and salmon-it sounded so weird we had to try it but it was awesome!). These are recipes that tend to be more complicated and use a lot of ingredients and steps, they are more suited to weekend cooking. This is also not a vegetarian cookbook, many of the recipes contain meat. This book does not contain any photos which is unfortunate but the considerable merits of the book outweigh this minor shortcoming. This book was definitely a winner, highly recommend.