Brown Rice Heaven

So, my half-Samoan husband was raised on white rice.  Lots and lots and lots of white rice.  He hated brown rice.  HATED brown rice.  I'd often ask him why he was racist against brown rice, since he's also brown, hoping to help him feel a common bond with the brown rice. ;) It never worked.  We all know brown rice is much healthier than white rice, so I persisted.  And one day, I came up with this recipe, which we now eat all the time.  Including my cute brown husband.  :)

PS - I have never cooked this in a pot.  I don't know the difference between cooking this in a pot vs cooking it in a rice cooker.  My first rice cooker had a button that said brown rice.  I'd push it and nearly 2 hours later, I'd have a big beautiful batch of brown rice heaven.  I now use a SaladMaster electric pot with 2 rice settings, rice 1 and rice 2.  Rice 2 is for brown rice.  It cooks much faster than my old rice cooker, about 40 minutes for brown rice heaven.

Ingredients:

(Double recipe as needed.)

2 C brown rice

2 C water

2 C coconut milk (for the coconut milk, I use So Delicious brand in vanilla or original, or 1 can of your favorite coconut milk.  If your can isn't quite 2 cups, then I add filler milk instead of opening another can.  For this I'll use vanilla rice milk or vanilla almond milk. But the rice and almond milk are frothier and might make your rice cooker boil over more easily.)

1 T honey (optional)

1 T butter/butter substitute/coconut oil (optional)

Some days I rinse my brown rice, some days I don't.  Haven't really noticed a difference.  I do use filtered water to cook in, though.  Our tap water tastes like dirt and I don't want my rice to taste like dirt.  I also have yet to try soaking my brown rice overnight, but I intend to, someday, when I think of what I want to eat the night before, and have time to do it, and don't get distracted by something else.  

Rinsed or not, I put the rice in the pot first and then add the water and coconut milk.  If you add the honey, stir it in so it doesn't just settle in one spot.  Butter/coconut oil will diffuse throughout while cooking.  This brown rice heaven is so delicious, you can eat it all on its own.  But that's not as fun as eating it with other yummy foods.  The coconut flavor is very mild and this rice lends itself as a great base to many different ethnic recipes, i.e. Asian, Mexican, Polynesian, Indian, etc.  It will become a staple in in cool households all over the world.  Enjoy!