Genmaicha tea or Why are you heating dry rice in a pan at 10 o clock at night?

I remember years and years ago at the little health food store in Grand Rapids (the one on the street across from Janicke Bakery) buying something called Genmaicha tea.  It was green tea with toasted brown rice in it.  Here is the Wikipedia link to Genmaicha tea.    I bought it at the Asian grocery in Fargo, too.. but have not found it or any good source for it here in Tennessee where I live now. 

I've been craving some for a few years now, but it is always expensive to try to find it and ship it in.

So last night, by some half-awake 'Eureka' of the mind, I thought 'Hey, I could toast some rice of my OWN... and get at least halfway to the idea.'  Well.  Let's just say Mark saw me come home with a bag of rice from the store at 10 o clock that night after work and I was stirring dry rice in the pan when he wandered downstairs to wonder what that smell was.   I had to convince him that no, I wasn't sleepwalking yet and yes, I did know there was no water in my fried rice. *heh*   When he heard my story about the tea as usual he just chalked it up to 'weird things Rhe does sometimes with food.'   I think it worked though.  Several of the little pieces of rice popped during the toasting, which is supposed to happen.

I have a small container of cooled toasted brown rice (that I might toast darker in the oven this morning) and it does make the green tea taste different when soaked with it.  It's been more than twenty years since I drank this on a regular basis...I'm not sure if I've got it right.  But, it was worth 80 cents and a few minutes to give it a try.  I threw some Oolong tea in my Amazon cart, as I really like having a large array of teas to choose from and was reading the benefits of oolong vs. 'regular' green tea.

I also had brown rice on the mind because I had been looking up some work lunch ideas.  One of the ideas was brown 'sticky rice', which was an intriguing idea.  I'm not sure if I can get that to happen.  I'm not sure if I want to buy a rice cooker next month (half the recipes seem to think it helps a lot).  I found this recipe How to Cook Brown Rice from Japan Centre.  It mentions sushi vinegar, which is vinegar with salt and sugar in it.  I may have my cooking ideas occupied for a week or more.  I'll note that I found this cooking lesson from Kitchn.com a much more feasible recipe alternative to the one where you let it sit for 2 to 3 hours in the water before you cook it.

Today I just want to make some plain brown rice and add a bit of avocado to it on the side, with my red curry paste.  I had the last of my Greek Yogurt this morning with almond butter and honey roasted sunflower seeds in it.  Only one dog thought that bowl was fit to lick - and that was the bluetick.  It's odd, as she hardly likes anything.  When I made the red cabbage the other day all of the dogs were huddled around me anytime they smelled it.  So my cooking has fans, but not the two most people would suspect in the household.