Vegetarians in Paradise
Ask Aunt Nettie

Our Aunt Nettie has a head like a hard disk. It's filled with megabytes of information about food and cooking. And she's just itchin' to share her learnin' with city folk who live in mortal fear of the stovetop.

Aunt Nettie grew up on the farm. She did not eat out of a can or reach into the freezer. There was no microwave to pop her food into. Everything she made was from scratch. All the food she ate was natural, without pesticides. It was grown right there on the family farm, and she had to cook to survive. At eighty-three years young she still leaps and bounds around the kitchen and can shake, rattle, and roll those pots and pans with the best of them.

Nowadays, Aunt Nettie just shakes her head and complains, "Nobody cooks anymore. They have no idea about puttin' a meal together." She's on a mission. She wants to help those younguns eat better so they can grow up healthy like her own eight kids.

We're delighted to share our Aunt Nettie with you. She's agreed to answer any questions you might ask about food, its preparation, and even clean-up tips. But we have to prepare you. She just might want to come right over to your house and help you fix dinner.

To send any questions to Ask Aunt Nettie, .

Since there are no questions for her this time, we asked her for a kitchen tip. Here it is.

COOKING WHOLE GRAINS QUICKER

You might be thinkin' that whole grains are just too much trouble to fix 'cause they take too long to cook. Well, I fixed that problem alright and shortened the cookin' time by soakin' the grains overnight or all day. That cuts the cookin' time right in half, and that's a good thing in today's world now, isn't it. Start off by rinsing the grains in a fine mesh strainer. That gets rid of all the little dust bunnies you can't even see but you know they're there. Next, soak the grains in the same amount of water yer recipe tells you to cook'em in. Then, cook yer grains in their soak water for half the usual cookin' time. Try this little soakin' trick with whole wheat grains, rye berries, spelt, barley, and wild rice. Them's the little grains I call "Long Johns."



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Vegetarians in Paradise