Great Grains: Buckwheat

Good morning all!

I'm back with another addition to my new series here on Edible Sound Bites called Great Grains! Today the spotlight is all on Buckwheat. If you're new to the series I'm basically creating a beginners guide to gluten free whole grains. So far I've tackled millet and followed up with a recipe for Millet with Butternut Squash and Kale, which was absolutely delish if I do say so myself. I am planning to do more than one recipe per grain in case you're wondering. Hopefully I can get a nice little collection going for each of the "grains".

Buckwheat Notes

Buckwheat is a nutritious and energizing wheat free grain, which makes it an excellent choice for vegans, vegetarians and those who are sensitive to wheat and gluten. It's also a delicious alternative to the traditional a bowl of porridge made with rolled oats. Buckwheat may sound like a cereal grain but is actually a fruit seed. The raw groats are hulled and triangular in shape. They have a delicate nutty flavour and are very crunchy to eat. Toasted buckwheat groats, also know as Kasha, are different from the raw buckwheat groats, because ...you guessed it they're toasted. You can tell the difference by looking at the colour; raw groats are soft white with a slight greenish tinge (like you see in the pictures in this post), where's toasted groats are darker brown. I don't recommend baking with them or grinding them into flour. This is just a personal preference.

Nutrition Facts

Here is the nutritional profile for 1 cup of cooked buckwheat (1/4 cup dry):

Buckwheat is one of the best sources of protein in the plant kingdom. It's also a complete protein that contains eight of the essential amino acids. Now you know why it's a favourite among non-meat eaters. It also satisfies hunger, unlike refined breads and white flours/starches.

It's a very good source of minerals including manganese, magnesium, and copper. A one cup serving (cooked) contains 86 milligrams of magnesium. That's pretty good considering the RDA for magnesium is between 310 to 400 mg per day! If you're reading this thinking, "why should I care about magnesium and what the heck is it anyway", it's actually said to help lower blood pressure by improving blood flow and nutrient delivery within your body. How's that for a healthy heart?

Don't forget the fiber. This super-grain boasts 5 grams of dietary fiber for 1 cup cooked/1/4 cup dry.

Buckwheat is rich in flavonoids rutin and quercitin. Without getting too in-depth here, flavonoids are plant based compounds with powerful antioxidant properties that reduce inflammation, prevent and repair cellular damage, and promote healthy arteries. Naturally they come from fruits and veggies, but they're also found in tea, dark chocolate and red wine. Yippee!

Where To Buy Buckwheat

You can buy raw Buckwheat groats online here. And of course you'll find them at your local health food store and even some of the larger grocery stores like Whole Foods and Zehrs Markets.

Prepaing and Cooking

Just like we did with millet, first rinse the grain under cold running water for about 30 seconds to remove any dirt. Then add one part buckwheat to 2 parts boiling water. Return it to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cover for 30 minutes or until the water is absorbed. This is the basic cook like oats method, but there are other ways of cooking buckwheat as well.

Check out Ashley's buckwheat bakes over at The Edible Perspective. Her Cinnamon Buckwheat Bake is one of my faves.

Uses

The raw groats can be cooked like rice and millet and then used in salads and side dishes.

Grind in your food processor or coffee grinder (for small batches) to make your own flour. You can buy buckwheat flour, but I find the taste to be a little strange. I prefer to grind it fresh when I need it. Fresh is best! It's a great alternative to other flours in both quick and yeast breads. Perhaps this is why pancakes seem to be the number thing made with it.

They make a wicked bowl of porridge. It's a great substitute for wheat and oats.

Use them as the base grain for pilafs instead of rice.

I can guarantee I'll be doing a lot of experimenting with it in the baking department. Be on the lookout next week for a buckwheat recipe.

Choc-a-lot chip cookies

I think it's about time I made something sweet don't you?

How about something stuffed to the brim with chocolate?

Let's think about this for a minute shall we? Large chunks of dark chocolate. Moist, soft, ooey-gooey tender goodness. I can hear fresh baked homemade cookies calling my name. Oh the aroma!

It might be surprising to learn that such an exceptionally decadent looking cookie can actually be healthy. Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first one to point out that a cookie is still a cookie, but if you're looking for a little something something and don't want to blow things out of proportion with a sugar overload, these little cookies will do the trick.

They can even be made vegan by using brown rice syrup or maple syrup instead of honey. And can be made gluten-free with the use of certified gluten-free oats.

The cookies are crying to be dunked in milk!

I always love finding recipes that have been cleaned up. It's not easy recreating something that tastes so good to start with already. I mean, how do you bake a cookie without using butter, eggs, processed sugar, and all-purpose flour?

Well after a few trials (some of which were complete fails) I found that by grinding oats, almonds, and buckwheat, and using coconut oil or sunflower oil I could pull together some pretty amazing cookies. . .That's how!

You know how most cookie recipes start out by telling you to grease a baking sheet, and half the time you know you don't have to because the cookies have so much butter in them that they're practically self-greasing? Well that's the best part about these guys is that they don't come out really greasy.

Yeah. Eew. Dangerously delicious, but not very friendly towards your waistline.

These chocolate chip cookies will satisfy any sweet tooth without setting you back 5 pounds and they aren't full of any weird chemicals, enriched flours, or unhealthy fats like those packaged store bought cookies are. Just loads and loads of chocolate! Hey, they aren't called Choc-a-lot Chip for nothing!

Choc-a-lot Chip Cookies (makes 16-18 cookies)

Adapted from veganricha.com

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp ground flaxseed
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• pinch of sea salt
• 4 tbsp warm water
• 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil
• 4 tsp unpasteurized liquid honey or maple syrup
• 4 tsp unsulfured molasses
• 4 tbsp organic cane sugar
• 1 cup ground oats
• 1/2 cup ground raw buckwheat flour (ground from raw groats in a blender)
• 1/2 cup almond flour (ground almonds)
• A heaping 2/3 cup of dark chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, stir together flaxseed, ginger, nutmeg and sea salt. Add warm water and next four ingredients through to and including cane sugar, mixing well to combine (I find a rubber spatula works best). Let this sit for 2-5 minutes.
3. While the wet mixture rests, grind up your buckwheat groats and oats in separate batches using a coffee grinder or blender.
4. Add the flours and mix well into a ball of dough. Then, add the chocolate chips and mix to incorporate. 
5. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to chill the dough.
6. Scoop tbsp of the dough onto cookie sheets and give them a little pat to flatten them.
7. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes. Cool on a wire rack (if you can wait that long).

*When grinding any grains into flour I always use my coffee grinder, because I find it does the best job. Especially when I only need small batches. A 1/2 cup does just fine in it.

*You can use sunflower oil instead of coconut oil in case of allergies.

*These can be made gluten-free with the use of certified gluten-free oats.

 

I don't know what it is about the texture of these chocolate chip cookies but they are to die for. Maybe it's the combination of everything in them. You'll just have to test out a batch, see for yourself and report back. :)

Shared at Fit & Fabulous Fridays.