Wheat Berry Pilaf with red bell pepper, onion, peas. vegan recipe - Vegan Richa (2024)

I met Susmitha I think around Vegan Mofo last year 🙂 or maybe earlier. Come to think of it, I met so many wonderful bloggers in that one whirlwind month.

When Sus asked me to do a guest post in the middle of Summer. I knew I was not going to find time till later. So here I am when the weather is cooling down, and in another few days I will be going crazy trying to blog every day of the month!

For the guest post, I was initially thinking of making some cookies. But Sus has been baking up super fun cookies already lately. So I decided on a delicious whole grain pilaf.

This pilaf can be made with any whole grains to make it glutenfree.Half the nutrients are lost from the nutritious grain when milled/ground.50g serving of hard red wheat berries, or about ¼ cup uncooked, provides 163.5 calories, 1g of fat, 6.5g of protein, 35.5g of carbohydrates, 6g of dietary fiber and 1mg of sodium. Wheat berries are rich in vitamins B1 and B3; and the minerals magnesium, phosphorus, copper, manganese and selenium.

Whole grains are easily available in India, or atleast thats what I remember from 10 years back 🙂 So many varieties of wheat, millet, sorghum, barley and more. When my Mom asked me a few weeks back for recipes to add more Oats to her daily diet, and the lack of availability if quinoa there, I suggested to use the available grains there. She has loads of wheat and millet at home sitting to be milled into flour, and she was surprised when I told her to try pilafs kind of preparation with them:) Mom, here are some pictures for you. I will ask Dad, next week if he got to eat something new 🙂 (Usually Dad doesnt remember the names of the new dishes, everything is food;). But he will mention that Mom made something different the other day, and it was like this or that and from the description I will know what Mom tried ;). Mom and Dad are working on finding a common Milk substitute in Chai they both like, and currently liking Cashew milk in most of their teas!

Super Yay for my Ma n Pa! I cant wait for the day when Mom is seen carrying containers of cashew cream to add to her tea while visiting family or restaurants in Nagpur 🙂

I used few veggies in the pilaf to let the wheat berry stand out. For variations: Add mushrooms, greens, eggplants, chunky vegetables, nuts, biryani /pulav masala of choice, dried fruit(raisin/cranberries). or make a simple one with vegetable broth, mushrooms and parsley.

Susmitha is also blogging along for Vegan Mofo 2012!. You can catch a sneak peak of whats to come on her blog here

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