On the Question of Rice Cakes

I’ve been MIA around here lately, and I’m blaming pickles, fried bread pizza, alfalfa sprouts, and rice cakes, etc.

I’m not sure what happened, exactly, but at some point in the past three months or so, we started spending WAY more time in our kitchen, making an increasing portion of our food from scratch.

In part, it was bringing the fermentation crock into the house at Christmas (thanks, Rick!), an increasing abundance of fresh vegetables, and a desire to have a greater hand–and say–in what we eat and how it’s prepared.

Plus, it’s fun and results in beautiful, hand-crafted objets de art and photo ops around every corner. It also has the added benefit of fewer polluting car trips to the dump because there is less food packaging coming into our house these days.

It’s more time consuming and labor intensive, though. That’s for sure.

But aside from the economic, environmental, and health benefits…

… there is the delight of being able to try all sorts of wonderful foods that we might not otherwise.

This, for instance, is kimchi. I had only ever heard about kimchi from Stephanie Morris’ blog she wrote while she was living and teaching English in South Korea. That is, until Rick found himself knee-deep into a new book on fermenting sauerkraut and announced his intention to give ‘er a whirl.

In parallel, we decided to dedicate a little counter space to Experiments in Sprouting (okay… not much time here, other than rinsing them twice a day)…

… I started grinding my own wheat by hand (more time)…

… and camping. That’s camp sourdough bread, made in a cast-iron Dutch oven.
The minutes add up…

… not to mention the three-week, 3400+ mile round trip we took in August in our wee trailer where I saw my first “girl cave,” invented fried bread pizza over an open flame, tried to teach the dog to swim, witnessed some jaw-dropping scenery, and hung out with the fam.
More on all that in blog posts to come, unless I extend my whole food processing skills to the next level and get side-tracked again.

In addition to all manner of sourdough breads, pizzas, and pancakes, I am now also making my own pasta, tortilla wraps, and as of this weekend, miso soup, hummus, tzatziki, and pita pockets.

Both the taste and the delight of having my hands in dough and soup pots are addictive, so who would blame me for eying part of our lunch today, and wondering…

Me: I wonder if I could make my own rice cakes?
Rick: You’d have to figure out how to make the rice puff up like that.
Me: Yeah, and I wonder what binds them together…
Rick: A shared history of oppression?

It’s funny what compels one to write.

3 thoughts on “On the Question of Rice Cakes

  1. Liv Erschen

    Hi Kathy,

    I changed my email address about a month ago. I just checked my old email
    spam and found this wonderful post. I want to live next door to you.
    If I was a dog, you might even adopt me.

    Wish we could have a meal together. I have such fond memories
    of the ones we did have last summer.

    Love,

    Liv

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