Someone pmed me and was interested after hearing that I mill my own wheat.
Are there any other bakers out there? Whether you mill your own wheat or not? Join us!
I want to start by saying I am NOT an expert on this. I did grow up making bread 1-2 a year with my mom but we used white flour. I always loved it.
Well earlier this year I started posting on a homemaker site where alot of the women cook from scratch. That is where I learned alot myself and got sold on the idea of making my own bread all the time and freshly milling the wheat. Most people here know how "white bread and flour" has most the nutrients and vitamins stripped, then some added back. When you bake your own bread, YOU control the ingredients.
I purchased a Nutrimill electric grain mill in April, got it from this place.
Nutrimill
I am very happy with it. At the local health store I can get organic, hard red wheat for like $35.00. I have to special order it. I am pretty sure it is a 50 pound bag. The bread is very delicious!
One small problem, any time I would go to make muffins for the kids, they would be very crumbly. A friend online told me that I needed to get soft wheat/ pastry white wheat.
So I got some of that and it is very good. The general rule of thumb is anything that needs yeast, you should use the red wheat, anything that you use baking soda or baking powder for you can use the pastry wheat. I am not going to lie, although I LOVE the bread and rolls and the muffins, some things just are not the same.
Like making home made pizza, I do use the white wheat but it is NOT going to be the same as pizza from the local pizzeria. It is VERY good though. And a heck of alot healthier.
I have tried my hand at tortillas and am still looking for a better recipe though. The tortillas taste very good and are very filling but they do start to break when you fold them over. I have seen some websites suggest dough enhancer, but I have never tried that for myself and am not sure either way of whether that would be a good thing or bad.
The bread. I have two recipes I like. I will say this, I LOVE the bread when it is hot out of the oven! I could probably eat half a loaf and the kids love it too. But I do not care for it when it is cold and in the fridge. My dh does not mind though and he will eat if every day. For me that is fine cause I will bake once a week and have some bread and then I have bean stuff for lunches usually.
I will tell you the difference between your own whole wheat and store is different. It packs a powerful punch. Like when I make "Kenny Roger's Corn Muffins." Wham! Same with the tortillas, the particular recipe I have done, when I first seen how tiny they were I was like, I could eat 10 of these! I had two with beans and cheese and rice on the side and was stuffed.
The particular recipe I have is pretty high in cals due to the extra virgin olive oil, like I said I would like to tweak it some day.
If anyone wants a recipe, let me know. If anyone wants to share their recipes, share them here!
Banana Nut muffins
These were the best muffins I have ever made! A great recipe and they did not fall apart, they were moist and delicious and everything a muffin should be ! I used a recipe from the make a mix cookbook.
Home made Freezer French toast, This is dh's plate, not mine! lol
Those are zipper bag omelettes I made with the kids.
Okay so eldest dd was filling up the quesedillas while I was making the tortillas. Looks like this first one she put terriyaki chicken on top of egg:
I recommend using a fork to seal the edges, she likes using her thumb.
More pics....
Here is the pic we took after they came out of the oven:
These were after frozen. Flash freeze and you got convenience food for the kids!
Anyhow I have pics w/out tortilla press and with. Enjoy!
These first two pics were as the recipe calls for 8(small)tortillas.
This second pic is when I took the 8 recipe and made them twice as big.
These last two are with the tortilla press . As you can tell no huge poofy bubbles and they are shaped round like they are supposed to be!
Very cute and they look like corn tortillas!
A round loaf of bread