Instant rice?

[burntmuch]

My basement is pretty much set up for emergency living. Ive been trying to stock up on canned food & other supplys Thought about picking up a couple big bags of rice. Got to thinking. That stuff takes some time to cook. Meaning more fuel is being used. Instant rice cooks faster so less fuel is being used. What ya think.  Not an issue if its cold & theres a fire in the fireplace. Just thinking out loud here

[Empty Quiver]

Cost verses convenience I suppose. Myself I went with instant mashed taters and plain rice as well as the Zatarans boxes. Throughout the world folks cook rice every day, in some of the most God awful places, I figure that I would be able to do it too. Don't forget the beans they take a while to cook as well.

[Siskiyou]

Between my kid years and married years I think I have been eating Minute Rich for fifty years.  It's okay and stores well.  What ever you get it will have a shelve life.  It is good to rotate stock.  

I wife puts together some dishes using different non-instant rice, it seems to taste slightly better, but I do not turn down instant rice.

[kynardsj]

About November of last year I started buying and storing non perishable food stuff and like most everyone else, ammo. I bought 30 pounds of regular rice then divided it up and vacum packed it. Told the wife that if it got too bad then all those squirrels running around our place would be good in a pot of rice. For whatever reason she didn't find it amusing.

[Almtnman]

I guess instant rice would be faster, but I prefer regular rice as it tastes better. I have developed a taste for Himalayan rice as I like the taste and the smell of it while cooking. It only takes 20 minutes to cook regular rice so that's not too long. Maybe it could be soaked for a while and cook faster like backpackers do their dry beans. They put dry beans in a water bottle with a little water, walk all day and cook the beans in a few minutes.

[burntmuch]

Thats a good idea with the beans. Maybe Ill try that. Soak some beans & rice for 5 or 6 hours then see how it cooks up. 

[briarpatch]

you can soak beans all night and they still take a few hours to cook, unless you like them hard.

[burntmuch]

So what beans would cook up the fastest after soaking.

[Almtnman]

Probably Navy beans or Great Northern beans.

[Almtnman]

you can soak beans all night and they still take a few hours to cook, unless you like them hard.

You need to try it once. Backpackers only have to cook them for a few minutes after they have been soaked all day in a water bottle.

[Empty Quiver]

I'm guessing here but I would start the beans at a fast simmer and let them cook about a half hour. If they are just starting to get done throw the rice in there and let it go another twenty to a half hour. If you get it right the beans won't be pulverized into liquid refried beans, too fast a boil pulverizes the beans, the rice doesn't need to boil fast either. Rice needs at least a two to one liquid to dry ratio and with the beans I'd shoot for three to one myself.

[GatCat]

I've heard from several sources over the years that instant rice is much less nutricious then "regular" rice.\
Mark

[Mikey]

Instant rice is less nutritious than regular rice.  You can 'pre-cook' regular rice just like you 'pre-cook' regular beans and any bean from the navy bean to kidney beans benefit from pre-cooking as does any rice.

Whether rice or beans - add rice/beans to the approriate amount of water and let sit until all the water is absorbed.  In SE Asia we used to add dehydrated vegetables to our dry rice, load it all into sealable sandwich baggies or even just plastic wrap, add the water and drop the package into a sock.  The rice and vegetables would absorb the water over a couple of hours and then be ready for 'heating' as it was already 'cooked' and heating would take only a few minutes before it wa ready to consume.  If we felt we needed 'meat', we would add snails pulled from rice stalks, or monkeys shot from trees, or any wild hogs or buffalo we could collect, but the rice and vegetables were ready to eat as soon as all the water was absorbed.....

[briarpatch]

When my wife fixes pinto beans she will look and clean them the night before and soak them over night. The next day she will cook them and it takes a few hours to make them tender. Its the same for any bean I have ever eaten.
I will add, if it were not for beans we would have starved growing up. We were raised on them and I love them.

[WD45]

We always soak beans before cooking them and while it does reduce the cooking time I have never seen it reduced to just a few minutes. I think backpackers tend to eat a lot of stuff that you would not normally eat and while it may be OK for a few days I doubt would want to eat that way all the time. NO offense to cty dwellers here but most of the backpacker types I see are not your normal country folk and for all we know don't know them beans ain't supposed to be crunchy

[burntmuch]

briar patch. Agreed on the beans. My family woulda starved for sure if it wasnt for Pinto beans & cornbread.

[mannyrock]

  I have pre-soaked in water, for 12 hours, pinto beans, red beans, and kidney beans, and all of them take at least two hours of cooking to soften up.  The hikers that were referred to, were probably carrying split peas or something else (not beans) in their canteens of water.  Most hikers I know are pretty savey when it comes to the food they carry, and they would not be eating hard or crunchy beans.

Regards,

Mannyrock

[charles p]

Three Rotarians from India stayed with my family for a week during a Rotary Club exchange.  I invited them to cook for us and we had rice with every meal.  They soaked the rice during the day, and changed the water once or twice.  Tasted OK to me and probably did cook a little faster.

[The Hermit]

I keep instant rice in my back woods cabin for a quick meal and regular rice in my main cabin. I use great northen beans and plant them in my gardens also. You can take a bag of great northen beans from the grocery store and plant them in your garden to get your first supply of beans. Then grow them yourself.
A friend sent me a bag of wild rice from Minnesota harvested by the indians. They paddle a canoe through the water and knock the rice into the canoe with sticks. It was dark color and the best rice I ever ate.

    The Hermit

[INresponse]

My basement is pretty much set up for emergency living. Ive been trying to stock up on canned food & other supplys Thought about picking up a couple big bags of rice. Got to thinking. That stuff takes some time to cook. Meaning more fuel is being used. Instant rice cooks faster so less fuel is being used. What ya think.  Not an issue if its cold & theres a fire in the fireplace. Just thinking out loud here

A while back we bought some regular rice because it was a 'little' cheaper than Minute Rice.  Then the fun began ...... I had to think about the mixture of rice and water, it took longer to cook, and if I tried to store it in something else for storage I had to make sure I included a copy of  the instructions.  After we finished that off (which took a long time to get rid of this headache) we stocked up on Minute Rice.  With Minute Rice it is equal parts rice and water and you cook it in boiling water until the water is absorbed.  That is all you need to know.  If you dont have a measuring cup handy you can use any cup, can, bowl, or whatever appropriate sized container to measure out the water, bring it to boil, and add in an equal amount of rice, then simply simmer until done.

Can't beat that.  Regular rice may have a bit more nutrition, but you will need something to eat with the rice because rice alone wont cut it for long (for most of us).  I like the simple recipe of 1 cup rice with 1 can of Cream of Chicken soup mixed in .... call it dinner.

[Hooker]

you can soak beans all night and they still take a few hours to cook, unless you like them hard.

Two words for ya, Pressure Cooker.
Dint y'all mommas never teach y'all nuttin?

Pat

[Dixie Dude]

 I bought about 50 lbs of regular rice before Y2K and am still using it.  Have about 15-20 lbs left.  Doesn't take much.  Stored in one of those 5 gallon buckets with a rubber seal.  Still good.  Anything you can keep dry or dried food will keep forever if sealed.  They found some wheat seeds in a pyramid in Egypt over 2,000 years old still good. 

[WD45]

I never seen any backpacker carry a pressure cooker around with them.
Oh yeah, My momma taught us about pressure cookers.. We had an old one come apart and stick a piece of the lid in the cieling
I don't think you can even buy one of those kind any more. Good thing everyone was in the other room when it blew. Sounded like a cannon went off in the kitchen and scared the livin hoowee out of us

[briarpatch]

agree hooker, it will make it faster but not a few min.

[Dixie Dude]

Regular rice does take a little longer to cook.  I haven't used Minute Rice in years, but I think we use 2-3 parts water and one part rice and cook slowly until the water cooks down like Minute Rice.  Therefore it does take longer to cook off the water.  You can also grind up dry rice into powder for rice flour and make rice bread.  Very bland, but some people are alergic to wheat. 

[SHOOTALL]

instant rice- boil water add rice
regular rice put rice in water and boil
not sure you save fuel either way .

[WD45]

OK Mikey, we all gotta know. Does monkey taste like chicken??

[Almtnman]

All this rice talk is making me hungry. A heaping plate of hot cooked rice smothered with some good gravy and lots of black pepper sounds about right for me.

[Dixie Dude]

It is amazing all this talk about a simple thing as rice. 

[Almtnman]

I bet a good discussion on butter beans would outweigh a rice discussion. Problem is, I don't think there is any instant butter beans, so we might as well use up some fuel and put some out too!