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Monday, November 7, 2022

Using Up Leftover Cooked Rice With the Help of My Blender


We've had this cooked rice (mix of white and brown) lingering in the fridge for almost a week. We've used most of it. But I just couldn't get us to finish off that last 1/2 cup. Instead of freezing it for another time, I decided to use the cooked rice in pancakes. If cooked rice in a pancake sounds unappealing, let me share how I make the rice near undetectable.

Here's the key -- before mixing the dry with the liquid ingredients for a batch of pancakes, I puree the cooked rice with the other liquids, in this case the milk, egg, and oil. In my experience, a batch of pancakes or 12-ct muffins can handle up to 1/2 cup of leftover cooked rice. I used my smoothie blender this time, but I've also used our pitcher blender with success. 


I begin with the rice and about half the liquid in the blender and puree until the blender seems to need more liquid, then blend in the rest of the liquid. At this point, I mix the liquids into the dry ingredients and make pancakes or muffins as usual.


Here's a cut pancake. You can see inside the texture looks like a traditional recipe pancake. I came across 1 particle of rice in my pancake, but it wasn't anything that bothered me. And they taste exactly like regular pancakes.

This also works with leftover cooked oatmeal. Leftover oatmeal can be blended and pureed with the liquids for pancakes, waffles, muffins, snack cakes, and quick breads. Oatmeal tends to puree to smooth texture more quickly than cooked rice. But both can be pureed to smooth enough consistency that my family doesn't even notice this added ingredient.

10 comments:

  1. That's a good idea. My family doesn't seem to mind extra texture in pancakes--we have a couple of recipes that include oatmeal in the pancake ingredient list--but I've never tried adding leftover rice to mine. I'm thinking you could add your rice puree to a lot of bread-ey foods--muffins, yeast breads ....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kris,
      I tend to add pureed cooked grains most to muffins, as I make a lot of muffins. But I bet this might also work in snack cakes. But my family did enjoy the pancakes this week. I haven't tried adding grain puree to yeast breads yet. I'll have to give that a try soon. Thanks for the suggestions.

      Delete
  2. This has noting to do with rice .... but I just saw a video with easy-to-create fabric Christmas decorations/gift toppers which would potentially cost you nothing if you could use materials that you have on hand. I thought it might appeal to all of us Frugalistas.
    Here's the link--you have to watch the video to see the ideas. https://www.thepondsfarmhouse.com/the-best-gift-wrapping-ideas-for-christmas/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi again, Kris,
      I've been thinking about Christmas gifts and wrapping lately. Thank you for this link, I'll check the video this afternoon. I did see the ticking and muslin fabric trees she did. And they were very cute. Thank you for the link!

      Delete
  3. great idea! What do you do with leftover pancakes? It is just my hubs and me now and when I make pancakes, I always have leftovers. I have tried freezing them and then forget about them so they end up in the trash.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Ruthie,
      Leftover bread-type foods go into a container in the top drawer of the kitchen freezer (so I see it regularly). When it's full enough, I either make bread pudding, cheese and bread strata, or savory bread stuffing. I made a bread stuffing to go with last night's dinner. In it was 1 eggnog scone, 1 plain scone, 2 biscuits, 1 slice of very hard and stale bread, a half slice of commercial bread, and 2 end slices of homemade bread. Even though the scones were a slightly sweet, they still worked in the savory stuffing.

      With just you and your husband there, you could plan to use the leftover pancakes in a breakfast egg and sausage strata-type casserole on the weekend. The other thing I've done with leftover pancakes is make peanut butter and banana slice sandwiches. I still like these and my kids loved them. My daughters will often grab a leftover pancake and top it with peanut butter when they're running out the door to catch a bus to work. Great portable breakfast with protein and a grain.

      Delete
  4. We love waffles with any kind of pumpkin or anything else in it. I was thinking about the rice and it seems natural to me to put that in bread dough or waffle/pancake dough. But we always gobble up any kind of leftover rice so unless I make rice specially for a pancake I don't see it happening!
    Alice

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Alice,
      Yum, I love pumpkin waffles and pancakes, too. I once had sweet potato pancakes that were so good. I should try those again sometime. Thanks for reminding me of pumpkin/squash/sweet potato pancakes/waffles.

      Delete
  5. That's a great idea. You mentioned that you put rice in muffins, well I've used leftover wild rice in a Wild Rice Muffin recipe. It's fantastic.
    Like Anonymous above, usually we have no trouble eating up the leftover rice, especially if it's used in Rice Pudding. But on the rare occasion there is plain white rice, I have pureed it in water and used it as a substitute for store-bought "rice milk" in smoothies. Once mixed with fruit etc., no one can tell that the whole grain of rice was used.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi PD,
      I'll have to internet search Wild Rice muffins. Those sound like they'd be a good accompaniment for soups and stews.
      Great idea to puree the rice with water for smoothies! I'm going to try that soon. Thank you.

      Delete

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