What To Make With What’s On Sale: brown rice, peaches, and more

Time for this week’s What To Make With What’s On Sale post!  Here’s a few items that are on sale for a good price and some ideas with what-on-earth to do with them.

Brown Rice

Long and short grain brown rice is 50¢/lb at Sunflower Market, and 2-lb bags of brown rice are 99¢ at Albertsons.  I’ve known for a long time that brown rice is better for you, but it definitely takes some, um, getting used to.

However, awhile back I bought some short grain brown rice at the Asian market, and found it to be much more palatable than long-grain.  I really need to research the nutritional content differences, as I’m not sure if short grain is perhaps not as nutritious as long-grain, but anyway.  We really like the short grain brown rice for Asian dishes, and barbecue meatballs over brown rice (though I still use white rice for Mexican rice).

Here’s how to cook brown rice up nice and fluffy:

1. Rinse 2 cups short-grain brown rice until water is clear.
2. Place rice in pot with 2 3/4 cups cool water, and allow to sit with the lid on for about 30 minutes.
3. Bring rice to a boil, then turn heat to low and cover.  Do not stir.
4. When rice has absorbed water and started to “dry out” on the top, fluff it with a fork and serve!

These were the instructions (or close to it) on the bag of rice I bought at the Asian market.  It’s the same way Cook’s Illustrated recommends cooking white rice, and it seems to create nice fluffy rice.

Peaches

Peaches are 57¢/lb at Sunflower Market through next Wednesday, and I would guess this may be the last amazing peach sale of the season.  I’m buying a bunch and freezing them, and we’ll be eating some fresh and making peach muffins with streusel topping.

7-Bone Beef Chuck Pot Roast

This isn’t on my menu… because I don’t know what to do with it?  It’s only $1.49/lb at Safeway, but I’m not sure how to cook it.

Alaska Salmon

It seems like it’s been forever since salmon was on sale for less than about $6/lb.  Albertsons has wild-caught Alaska salmon for $5.97/lb this week, and while that’s not cheap, it might make its way onto our menu this week.  (Side note: wild-caught is on my list of things to research for a post in the Behind The Label of Your Food series.

Anyway, my favorite recipe for salmon is this one for Brown Sugar and Mustard Glazed Salmon by Bobby Flay.  Instead of grilling (because when I first started making the recipe we didn’t have a grill!), I broil on high for about 12-14 minutes.  Make extra sauce; it is awesome over broccoli.

• Organic bunched broccoli is on sale for 99¢/lb at Sunflower Market

Hmm, what else?

I didn’t really see too much of anything too exciting on sale this week. :(  I’ll definitely be using some ingredients from my pantry and freezer to pull together a menu plan!  Last night we had potato soup, of which all the ingredients were either on sale last week, or were in my freezer and pantry.

What are you fixing with what’s on sale this week?  Don’t miss last week’s What To Make With What’s On Sale discussion, there were some great tips and recipes shared!