Wheat And Grinder Preferences

The old standby, wheat, dominates our food storage, along with rice and sugar. But using wheat in bread poses a grinding question: do I grind the wheat into a fine flour? Or, do I grind it coarsely to get the benefit of the bran for fiber?

The electric grinder I bought years ago ground the wheat kernels into a nice soft flour, but didn’t have a coarse enough setting to allow me to get that bran I wanted to see in my bread; even the coarsest setting is still a flour. And, its extremely loud, puts a fine powder into the air as it grinds (so I take it outside to grind wheat), and takes a lot of care to clean after each use. But I still like it, and use it when I want a fine wheat flour.

So, I bought another hand-cranked grinder to get the coarse wheat I wanted for breads. It has different settings, but even at it's finest setting, it'still coarse. I love it! It mounts to the kitchen table and grinds perfectly. It takes a little longer to get the amount of wheat I want to store, but it's relative quiet, and I can have someone else help turn the handle for a while.

Another word about wheat: ideally, wheat should be ground just before using in recipes to get the most nutritious benefit. However, I find it difficult to leave my hand-crank wheat grinder out, mounted on the kitchen table or counter, waiting to be used when I’m ready to bake bread. Even leaving the electric grinder out (to take outside) wouldn't be practical either. So I coarsely grind several cups of wheat with the hand-crank grinder and store it in an air-tight canister to be used in pancakes, bread, and anything else I choose, and then its put away for a while. I do the same thing with the electric grinder: I grind lots at once and store it for use later.

My thoughts are that eating wheat, even if its ground weeks earlier, is still good for you. It’s better than nothing. The impression is often given that if one doesn't grind their wheat just prior to baking, you're either not a very good cook, or somehow you don't quite meet up to the ideal standard. However, I believe that if you can sprout your 15+-year-old wheat, then it's still good and you can grind it, store it, and use it whenever you need it. Otherwise, what's the point of storing so much wheat and using it a little at a time?

A personal preference: Between red wheat and white wheat, I like red wheat for it's stronger flavor in pancakes and some breads. I also like red wheat for a hot cereal cooked in a crock pot overnight. White wheat (finely ground) is good for a hint of wheat flavor in some breads.

Year's Supply Review - Freeze-dried versus Dehydrated

(What I’ve learned…)

When deciding what items fit into your food storage, there are several choices: canned, frozen, freeze dried and dehydrated, among others. When looking for something dried, there are these options: dehydrated and freeze-dried.

Dehydrated foods are foods that have had the moisture removed (as much as possible) and stored in air-tight containers. Freeze dried foods are flash frozen, then dried. How is it made? “To create freeze-dried food, the item is first flash frozen, then a low-level heat is applied inside a vacuum chamber. This process melts the ice crystals without changing the cell structure of the food. Finally, the food is packed for long-term storage. This process retains much of the color, texture, shape, flavor, and nutrition.” (Emergency Essentials, November 2010 catalog, pg. 5)

So which is better? The answer depends on your taste buds, and your budget. Dehydrated foods, whether fruits or vegetables, still have some moisture in them, and therefore, are sometimes a bit more rubbery. And there is some color loss in dehydrated food. Freeze dried foods, are more crunchy; but a kind of easy-on-your-teeth, crunchy. Both work well in soups and stews, but used as side dishes, you’d have to experiment with your level of acceptance. Some dehydrated vegetables work only in soup/stew dishes, while others are passable enough to stand on their own as side dishes. And the cost of freeze-dried food items is usually more than dehydrated. But then again, you’d need to experiment with your own taste, and product usefulness to see what works for your family.

Granted, nothing is better than fresh, but either freeze-dried or dehydrated are good additions to a year’s supply of food storage.

I’d be curious to know if anyone has a favorite freeze-dried food, or a favorite dehydrated food….
My favorites are freeze-dried peaches and strawberries (expensive, but really good!). 
Dehydrated apples are great for car trips as a snack. Tomatoes (and other vegetables) are great for soup.

Year’s Supply Review – Powdered Milk

We all know that for what seems like hundreds of years we’ve been counseled to get our year’s supply of food and supplies. But a complete year’s supply of food can be hard to compile and store, and then compile and store all of the supplies that are required.


Our experience has been that even though storage space is an issue, having the extra is well worth it. We’ve found ourselves out of butter or milk, and resorted to using our reserves in powdered form. And there have been times when we’ve run out of potatoes, and used our canned potatoes, or we’ve run out of grape jelly and used our stored homemade jellies.

Most recently, we’ve used our powdered milk. Over the years I’ve tried powdered milk products, judging their taste and bake-ability, and have found that one brand, so far, has topped the others hands down. As far as using powdered milk in baking bread, any brand or kind works well. But drinking powdered milk is a whole different story. Taste is everything!

Provident Pantry’s Instant Nonfat Dry Milk has the taste a powdered milk should have (because it's supposed to taste like regular milk), and is worth its weight in gold. It mixes quite well; better than regular powdered milk, which can stay lumpy for a while. This milk mixes smoothly with little lumps that dissolve quickly. I usually add the water to the powder in a pitcher and whisk it to blend quickly, then use a long spoon or knife to loosen any powder at the bottom edge of the pitcher. Even though whisking produces lots of foam, refrigerating the milk (or adding ice cubes to cool it for immediate use) will break the tiny bubbles and make it smooth like regular two-percent, store-bought milk.

When we first bought Provident Pantry’s brand milk, I was so impressed with the ease of mixture and especially its taste, I wanted to tell the whole world how good it was (and passed my enthusiasm on to some ladies at church, and wrote a post about it). I even invited some ladies to come by my house and taste it.

I use powdered milk when we’ve run out of store-bought milk, and I use it in bread-making. Our picky teenagers sometimes turn their noses up at the thought of drinking any kind of powdered milk, but they’ll drink it, which is a good thing.

If you need to add powdered milk to your year’s supply of food storage, and know that at some point you might need to drink it, get the milk that you know will taste as close to store-bought as you can get (sounds like a commercial!). Because you’ll be glad you have it when you’re dollar-stretched or have run out of regular milk. And hopefully you’re family will enjoy the taste as well.

Eliza Shares a Recipe

Eliza found some easy cookies to make, and she was so excited to share them, that I thought I'd post her success. The recipe came out of the Hershey's Chocolate Cookbook, and is quite workable for a young baker, especially because it's all done in the microwave.
Chocolate Crackles
10 T. butter
6 T cocoa
1 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c.  flour
1/2 c. nuts, chopped

powdered sugar

Microwave butter in medium bowl for 45-60 seconds or until melted. Add cocoa; blend well. Beat in sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour and nuts. Refrigerate at least 8 hours or until firm.

Shape into 1 inch balls; roll in powdered sugar. Place 8 cookie balls on a plate and microwave at 50% power for 1-1/2 to 2 minutes or until surface is dry but cookies are soft when touched. Cool, and repeat with remaining dough. Optional: sprinkle with additional powdered sugar after they come out of the microwave.

Note: After mixing, Eliza put the dough in the freezer for about 1 hour. She used chopped peanuts in the mix. Also, the dough is the consistency of playdough, and therefore, produces a cake-like cookie.

Pretty good, for a young teen!

Peaches!!!!!

Time for Peaches!

I love this time of year because of all the fruit we get to preserve: apples, pears, and peaches!

It's also the time chocolate can be ordered, too. (but that's another story!)

Here's how I preserved our peaches: frozen and dehydrated.

With our box of peaches,

I put about 5 or 6 in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes to loosen the skins.

Then I put the peaches in ice cold water to stop them from cooking all the way through.

I just want to heat the skins enough to separate them from the pulp on the inside.
The skins slip right off! So Easy!

                                                

Then I cut them in half, take out the big seed, and slice them for dehydrating and freezing.

(Dehydrating: 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick, for about 8 - 10 hours, or till crispy)

(Freezing: 1/2 - 3/4 inch thick, for about 6 hours, or until nearly frozen)

The slices then go either on the dehydrater trays to dry, or on a jelly roll pan for freezing. 

After they were nearly frozen through, I took a large pancake turner (metal) and scraped them from the pan and put them in a ziploc bag for further freezing.

I love the color of the water after scalding a few batches of peaches.
Rich rose color! (although this picture doesn't do it justice - a bit blurry)

These are the frozen peaches. Turned out great!

And these are the dehydrated peaches.

Quite thin, but still pretty good eating.

This was the first batch - paper thin.
(The other batches were thicker)

But whether thick or thin, they're still good eating!

Braided Bread! Yum!

This recipe turned out great! I used a regular bread recipe, cut into thirds after it's first rising, and made three different things out of it: This braid, some nut-filled crescent rolls, and a loaf of raisin bread. The crescent rolls disappeared in a blink, and the raisin bread needed more baking, but all turned out great!

The hard part is keeping hands off of it till dinner!