accidental tapioca

a friend of mine is as big on breakfast as i am.  she and i we realized we were sisters in the most important meal of the day when we found out that each of us, without the other one knowing, takes steel cut oats, stirs in a yogurt (or soy yogurt, or just tofu sometimes), adds some berries and lets it "marinate" overnight in the 'fridge for the next morning's "grab and go" breakfast.  well, i recently, and completely by accident, discovered something similar. 

do you like tapioca pudding?  i have to say it's not my favorite, but that could be because it's hard to find a "clean" tapioca out there.  and by clean, i also mean non-dairy.  milk does a body no good.  no body.  no good.  nobody.  ok ok this is a not an anti-dairy rant.  there's plenty of time for that later. 

so, part of this discovery came about when i was reading about foods that helped with muscle regerneration and recovery.  i had pulled a calf muscle while training for a half marathon, and needed to see what i could eat to aid in its repair.  my quest yielded the obvious results, like potassium-rich fruits and veggies and of course, water.  but i also found out that quinoa and buckwheat (soba) were two wonderful sources of anti-inflamatory and other healing properties for muscles. 

who knew?

off to the store i went for a bag of buckwheat.  i have had buckwheat pancakes and you know, buckwheat has that distinctive taste somwewhere between dirt and tree bark.  now, in soba noodles (which usually have some wonderful tamari mixed in), it is not so harsh, but in its grain form, well, it needs flavor accompaniment as far as i am concerned -- and i LOVE this sort of culinary challenge.  well, i got home and made the buckwheat and decided to eat it with soy vanilla yogurt stirred into it, and just a sprinkle of cinamon.  the almost-crunch  of the whoe buckwheat grain was an interesting, but not really great "feel" on my tongue with the yogurt,  but whatever, i had muscles to heal, so i  had a few bites and put the rest in a container and in the 'fridge.

now we get to the good part. 

the next day, i find that container in the 'fridge and i have no idea what it is.  i open it and see that it's my buck/yo/cin concoction and i can see that the buckwheat grains have expanded quite a bit and they actually look like they had softened.  then a sweet waft of vanilla tempered by the subtle blunt of the buckwheat hits my nose and i can't get a spoon in my hand fast enough to see what this forgotten muscle-healing potion now tastes like.  what a wonderful surprise -- the soft buckwheat and the yogurt had formed a gel that not only tasted but FELT like tapioca -- a clean, DAIRY FREE tapioca! 

and voi la -- there you have accidental tapioca.  make it for dessert!  bon apetit!