Always making too much rice

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I think the general measurement is one coffee cup of rice per person. As for recipes for leftover rice, I make a hot and sour soup to go with rice.


Which coffee cup? I have little ones for espresso and large ones for lattes. :)
 
I think generaly doctors recomend a regular size cup of a side dish per dinner, rice included. But you are of course correct Frank.
 
Being on Time-of-use electricity has made me much more aware of how much energy things use, of course, running the house on a generator for 12 days also made me aware of these things. And having just enjoyed 6 days out of the last 9 days on "cheap" power (before TOU rates), I really miss being able to be "unaware" of power rates. Fortunately, I only cook for 1 most of the time and I'm in the city Wednesday and Thursday nights this week. And, I really hate TOU--it penalizes those who are at home (whether working, caring for children, or retired) during the day. It also makes it really hard for people to cook from scratch because the rates don't change to lower rates until 7 p.m. Most people want to eat before that or have something ready when they come home. I see it as being counter-productive re: trying to encourage people to eat better...

When this was implemented in April 2011, my goal for 1 year was to to see if I could keep my energy costs around the same as they were before TOU rates. I figured this would be a sufficient length of time to alter life-long behaviour patterns. A friend put a water holding tank on his woodstove, routed the warmed water to a hot water tank (it was a little more complicated than that). His electricity bill has dropped by $30/month since doing this. He used to have his hot water tank on a timer. Now, he complains that sometimes the water is too hot and he has to run a bucket off. He's thinking of rigging up a solar means of warming the water for the summer months.

For example, I wanted to take 1/2 of the pork loin I had left from Saturday and cook it and freeze it for another time. I checked to see if (a) 10 hours on low in the crockpot, (b) 5 hours on low in the crockpot, or (c) ~2 hours at 325 in the oven would use less energy. Given the consumption rates for the crockpot and oven/hour/setting, the crockpot on low for 10 hours would be more expensive than either (b) or (c) with (b) being slightly cheaper and more energy efficient. Cooking rice in a saucepan would be more energy efficient than using a rice cooker.

I have found that rinsing the rice under hot water until it runs clear helps. I also bring the water in the saucepan to a boil, add the rice, stir, and then reduce to a simmer, cover, and don't peak for 20 minutes. Remove from heat, let sit for about 5 minutes, fluff with a fork. If I want rice for a pilaf, I reduce the water slightly--instead of 2 c water to 1 c rice, I use 1-3/4 c water to 1 c rice.
Don't you have a wood burning cook stove?
 
Hey don't start with me, I cannot stand the standard measuring system, it makes no sense what so ever. The whole world is using Metric; it is time for the States to switch. Even the British who came up with that nonsense are using metric nowadays. :LOL:
 
The US is a metric country... the US is a metric country... the US is a metric country. (If we say it enough it will actually be true).

And don't get me started on the British with their liters of gas they go miles with to get a pint of beer and and grams of peanuts.
 
I too wish we could switch to the metric system, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. The US had a plan to go metric when I was in college and now I've had my entire career and retired and there's still no progress in going metric. I sometimes wonder if the US is waiting for the world to recognize the error of their ways and go off the metric system. It's embarrassing to be the only significant country in the world not on the metric system. In fact the US may be the only country not on the metric system.
 
I think I read somewhere that there was some other small country still using it.
I say our president should give money to the switch instead of the banks. Imagine how many people will have to be hired to do the job, the paper work, etc. Economy will jump 100%, we will start producing products that Europians will want to buy for a simple reason that the products are in metric. I really think I am onto something here...
 
I too wish we could switch to the metric system, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. The US had a plan to go metric when I was in college and now I've had my entire career and retired and there's still no progress in going metric. I sometimes wonder if the US is waiting for the world to recognize the error of their ways and go off the metric system. It's embarrassing to be the only significant country in the world not on the metric system. In fact the US may be the only country not on the metric system.

You know those signs outside banks and other buildings that give the temps? Well when we were trying to convert to metric, they were showing temp in metric only. So many people were ging inside and asking what the real temp was. They then switched to giving the temp in metric first and farenheight second. That didn't work either. We simply didn't like the change and were not willing to even try. We do not care of recipes that are given in metric. That is why you hear cooks form other countries give their measurements in mectric and decimal. That is if they wish to go global. :ohmy:
 
Yeppers, pretty certain. Perhaps somebody can back me up on this cooking lore:

one cup of uncooked rice = three cups of cooked rice

I don't see how that can be when it takes two cups of water for that one cup of uncooked rice. Maybe 2.5 cups due to the swelling of the rice. :chef:
 
You know those signs outside banks and other buildings that give the temps? Well when we were trying to convert to metric, they were showing temp in metric only. So many people were ging inside and asking what the real temp was. They then switched to giving the temp in metric first and farenheight second. That didn't work either. We simply didn't like the change and were not willing to even try. We do not care of recipes that are given in metric. That is why you hear cooks form other countries give their measurements in mectric and decimal. That is if they wish to go global. :ohmy:

Metric is decimal (it works by tens). People in the US use US measure. People in the British Commonwealth used to use Imperial measure. The liquid measure wasn't the same in those two systems.
 
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but about 10 years or so ago I began making wine as a hobby. Since many of the books I learned from reference metric measurements, I decided to swallow my US pride and learn it. Maybe "re-learn it" is a better phrase, since we had this stuff in grade school. Anyway, I'm glad I did. It really is much easier to use than our antiquated system and I, for one, would welcome the change.

By the way, in response to another post, the British haven't fully converted to metric in practice. They are just as stubborn as we are. Although gas is sold by the liter, everything over there is still measured in miles (just watch "Top Gear" sometime and you'll see what I mean). And I know quite a few Brits, albeit mostly my age or older, who also live by the inch and foot, and prefer Fahrenheit over Celsius.

And just try walking into a pub and asking for 0.57 liters of beer, rather than a pint. :LOL:
 
one cup of uncooked rice = three cups of cooked rice

Rice expands as it cooks. It does not solely depend on the volume of rice plus the volume of water.

We simply didn't like the change and were not willing to even try. We do not care of recipes that are given in metric.

That's it right there. Most Americans do not wish to go metric. People don't like change. It does not matter that the metric system is easier to use. It's unlikely that more than a few people ever give it any thought at all.

I'd switch in a second if I could, but I've accepted that it won't happen in my lifetime. In the mean time I can think and speak in metric if whenever I have dealings with international people, which isn't very often.
 
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but about 10 years or so ago I began making wine as a hobby. Since many of the books I learned from reference metric measurements, I decided to swallow my US pride and learn it. Maybe "re-learn it" is a better phrase, since we had this stuff in grade school. Anyway, I'm glad I did. It really is much easier to use than our antiquated system and I, for one, would welcome the change.

By the way, in response to another post, the British haven't fully converted to metric in practice. They are just as stubborn as we are. Although gas is sold by the liter, everything over there is still measured in miles (just watch "Top Gear" sometime and you'll see what I mean). And I know quite a few Brits, albeit mostly my age or older, who also live by the inch and foot, and prefer Fahrenheit over Celsius.

And just try walking into a pub and asking for 0.57 liters of beer, rather than a pint. :LOL:

There are only two things that are difficult about metric.
1) Getting used to Celsius for temperature
2) translating back and forth between metric and some antiquated, bizarre system.
 
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