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G = Greenwheat Freekah Equals Redundant

Almost three weeks have passed since my last post.  Yeah.  This wonderful, great kitchen alphabet challenge.  And I have fallen off the wagon but hard.

I realize I have lost all credibility with my readers.  There is no reason to read Be Food or believe a word I say.  So, while I still write this blog for you, dear readers, I mostly write now for myself.

Okay.  At last post, I was enthralled by the whole grain farro.  Which, upon further research, turns out to be sold as a whole-grain...but is a wheat-type grain...bad news bears for any of you gluten-free folk out there (and I know of one).

My latest grocery store discovery a couple of weeks ago was this little prize:


Freekeh.  I know you want to pronounce it like 'freaky'...but no, it's free-kah.  It sounds so very exotic and Middle Eastern-originating.  It's used in similar ways to farro or quinoa or bulgur or even rice.  I substituted it for farro in a mushroom soup and it worked well.  Personally, I like the nutty chewiness of the grain.


This is the super-yellow filter on my iPhone...what was I thinking? It does nothing for the appealingness of the dish. Grrr. Anyway, this was our dinner last night, along with a nice chunk of bread.  I had one bowl and was quite full...which is the nature of whole grains like farro, freekeh, etc...it's a WHOLE grain and that means you're getting the bran, the chaff, the germ...all of it...because all of it is good.  It's a spoonful of mini fiber-bombs.

But I have to question the packaging of my local grocery store.  "Greenwheat Freekeh"?  By definition, freekeh is a young, green wheat that's had some minor processing done to it (cracked, roasted, etc).  So why put the greenwheat adjective in there, when it's clearly redundant?  Probably to give not-so-worldly consumers a descriptor they can buy into...greenwheat.  I guess that sounds mildly recognizable?  Like that would have been the deciding factor!  They already had me at 'Freekeh'.

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